/.

THE - — .

v

NEW SHAKSPERE SOCIETY'S

TRANSACTIONS.

1874.

PUBLISH! FOR THE SOCIETY BY

TRUBNER & CO., 57 & 59, LUDGATE HILL, E.G.,

LONDON.

W

L 6

Jex /
no. /~<

$ttu* I. JRo. 1.

R. CLAY ANU SONS, CHAUCER PRESS, BUNOAY.

PREFACE.

IN issuing the First Part of the Transactions of the New Shak-
spere Society, the Committee feel it necessary to state that the work
of the Society has been hitherto of a tentative kind.

For the future the Papers and Discussions will hold a sub
ordinate position. Papers will be read only once a month instead
of once a fortnight. They may not always be printed in full. Of
the Discussions also the reports will be reduced. The printed work
of the Society will deal primarily with the reproduction of parallel
texts of Shakspere's plays and of contemporary illustrative literature
not readily accessible to modern readers.

The present volume therefore conies before Subscribers as the
first and last of its kind. But, although it does not in all respects
represent what the Committee would have desired their first volume
to be, it may nevertheless have some use, not only in developing,
with whatever imperfections, a comparatively new line of Shak-
sperian study, but also in suggesting to the management of our
Branch Societies some things perhaps to imitate and some things
probably to avoid.

CONTENTS.

Title

Preface . . . . . . . . • . . . i

Contents . . .. .. .. .. . . iii

Note to p. 31. Malone and the Ryme-Test . . . . ivd

Notices of Meetings in 1874 . . . . . . . . v

I. ON METRICAL TESTS AS APPLIED TO DRAMATIC
POETRY:

PART I. SHAKSPERE. BY THE REV. P. G. FLEAY, M.A. . . 1

Metrical Table of Shakspere's Plays . . . . . . ' 16

Discussion on Paper I. (Mr Eurnivall, p. 17 ; Mr Richard
Simpson, p. 18 ; Mr Alexander J. Ellis, p. 19 ; Dr B.
Nicholson, p. 20) . . .... 17

Second Discussion on Paper I. (Mr J. W. Hales, p. 21 ;
Mr Spedding's Letter on the Pause Test, pp. 26-31 ;
Mr Eurnivall, p. 26, p. 31 ; Dr B. Nicholson, p. 35) 21

Mr Eleay's Postscript to Paper I. . . . . . . 38

SUPPLEMENT TO PAPER, I. ON THE QUARTO EDITIONS OF

SHAKSPERE'S WORKS. BY THE REV. r. G. PLEAY ; WITH
A TABULAR VIEW OP THE QUARTO EDITIONS OF SHAK-
SPERE'S WORKS FROM 1590 'TO 1630 A.D. . . . . 40

Notes on the Table .. .. .. ..46

II. ON METRICAL TESTS AS APPLIED TO DRAMATIC
POETRY :

PART II. FLETCHER, BEAUMONT, MASSINGER. BY THE REV.

P. G. FLEAY, M.A. . . . . . . . . 51

Passages to illustrate Paper II. . . . . 67

Discussion on Paper II. (Mr Eurnivall, p. 73 ; Dr Abbott,
p. 74 ; Dr B. Nicholson, p. 78 ; Mr R. Simpson, p.
82; Mr Hales, p. 83) 73

III. ON THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE TAMING OF THE

SHREW. BY THE REV. E. G. ELEAY, M.A. . . . . 85

APPENDIX GTS Titus Aiidronicus .. .. .. 98

Discussion on Paper III. (Mr Furuivall, p. 102 ; Mr R.
Simpson, p. 114 ; Mr Simpson's Table of Shakspere's
once-used Words, p. 115 ; Mr A. J. Ellis, p. 116 ; Dr
Abbott, p. 119 ; Dr B. Nicholson, p. 123 ; Mr H. B,
"Wheatley on Titus Andronicus, p. 126) . . . . 102

v CONTENTS.

FAGS

IV. a. ON THE AUTHORSHIP OF TIMON OF ATHENS. BY
THE REV. F. G. FLEAY, M.A. :

PART I. , . . . . . . . • * . • ISO

PAIIT II. . . . . . . • • • • • • 140

' The Lyfe of Tymon of Athens ' as written by W. SHAK-
SPERE, edited by THE REV. F; G. FLEAY . < . . 152

Notes on Tymon of Athens .. . . . . ..192

6. ON THE PLAY OF PERICLES. BY THE REV. F. G.

FLEAY, M.A. 195

* The strange and worthy Accidents in the Birth and Life of
Marina.' By w. SHAKSPERE, extracted by the REV. F. G.
FLEAY, from the play called Pericles . t . « . . 210

Notes on Marina . . . < . . , . . . 238

Discussion on Paper IV. (on Tymon : Mr Furnivall, p.
242; DrB. Nicholson, p. 249; on. Pericles: Mr Fur
nivall, p. 252) .. .v 242

V. ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH. BY J. W, HALES,

ESQ., M.A 255

Discussion on Paper V. (Porter in Macbeth : Mr Tom
Taylor, M.A., p. 270; Mr Furnivall, p. 273; Miss
Marshall, p. 283) 270

VI. ON CERTAIN PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE OF WHICH
PORTIONS WERE WRITTEN AT DIFFERENT PE
RIODS OF HIS LIFE. In Three Parts. BY THE REV.
F. G. FLEAY, M.A. :

PART I. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL . . * . . 285

„ II. TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA AND TWELFTH

NIGHT .. .. .. .. ..287

„ III. TROYLUS AND CRESSIDA . . . . . . 304

Discussion on Paper VI. (Mr Furnivall) . . . . 318

VII. ON TWO PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE'S, THE VERSIONS
OF WHICH AS WE HAVE THEM ARE THE RE-
SULTS OF ALTERATIONS BY OTHER HANDS. BY
THE REV. F. G. FLEAY, M.A. :

PART I. MACBETH . . . . . . . . . . 339

„ II. JULIUS (LESAR . . . . . . . . 357

Discussion on Paper VII. (Mr Furnivall, p. 498 ; Mr
Hales, p. 505) . , . . . . . , . . 498

VIII. MR HALLIWELL'S HINT ON THE DATE OF CORIO-

LANUS, AND POSSIBLY OTHER ROMAN PLAYS . . 367

IX. THE POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE IN SHAK
SPERE'S TIME. BY RICHARD SIMPSON, ESQ., B.A. . . 371

Discussion on Paper IX. (Mr Hales) . . . . . . 509

CONTENTS^ iv 6

PAGE

X. THE POLITICS OF SHAKSPERE'S HISTORICAL
PLAYS. BY RICHARD SIMPSON, ESQ., B.A. :

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . 396

I. KING JOHN . . . . . . . . . . 397

II. RICHARD IL i . . . . . . . . . 406

III. HENRY IV. . . . . . . . . . . 411

IV. HENRY V. . . . ; . . . . . . 416

V. HENRY VI. . . . . . . . . . . 419

VI. RICHARD III. t . . . . . . . . . 423

VII. HENRY VIII. . . . . . . . . . . 425^

VIII. DECAY OF THE NOBLES . . . . . , . . ItS^T

IX. GROWTH OF THE CROWN . . . . . . 432

X. GROWTH OF THE PEOPLE . . . . . . 438

xi. SHAKSPERE'S VIEW OF THE CHURCH . . . . 438

xu. SHAKSPERE'S POLITICS . . . . . . . . 440

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . 441

XI. ON THE "WEAK ENDINGS" OF SHAKSPERE, WITH
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE HISTORY OF THE VERSE-

TESTS IN GENERAL. BY PROF. JOHN K. INGRAM, LL.D. 442

APPENDIX. LIST OF LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS IN THE

PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE'S LAST PERIOD . . . . . . 457

XII. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S < DOZEN OR SIXTEEN
LINES'? BY W. T. MALLESON, B.A., UNIV. COLL.,
LONDON, AND J. R. SEELEY, M.A., PROFESSOR OF HISTORY

IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE : . . . . . . 465

i. MR MALLESON'S ARGUMENT . . . . . . 466

ii. PROFESSOR SEELEY'S COMMENTS ON MR MALLESON'S

PAPER, AND ON THE PLAY . . . . . . 474

in. MR MALLESON'S REJOINDER TO PROFESSOR SEELEY'S

COMMENTS . . . . . . . . . . 481

iv. PROFESSOR SEELEY'S FINAL REMARKS . . . . 487

Discussion on Paper XII. (Mr Furnivall, p. 493, and Note,
p. 511 ; Mr Simpson, p. 495 ; Dr Brinsley Nicholson, p.

495) 493

Discussion on Paper VII. (Mr Furnivall, Mr Hales) . . 498

Discussion on Paper IX. (Mr Hales) . . . . . . 509

Hamlet NOTE for p. 493 . . . . . . . . 511

Land-damn in Winter's Tale = provincial landan . . 511

CADE'S Wax in Henry VI. . . . . . . . . 512

CANNON-HEALTHS AND DANISH DRUNKENNESS in Hamlet . . 512

'EXTREME PARTS OF TIME/ L. L. Lost (Dr B. Nicholson) . . 514

APPENDIX.

1. THE SEVERAL SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND
FLETCHER IN HENRY Fill. BY JAMES SPEDDING, ESQ.,
M.A., HON. FELLOW OF TRIN. COLL., CAMS.

iv C CONTENTS.

PAGE

A Confirmation of Mr Spedding's Paper on the Authorship of

Henry VIII „ by the late Samuel Hickson, Esq. . . 18*

Mr Spedding's Letter on the same . . . . . . . . 21*

A. Fresh Confirmation of Mr Spedding's division and date of the

Play of Henry VIII., by the Rev. 1\ G. Fleay, M.A 23*

Another Fresh Confirmation of Mr Spedding's division and date of

the Play of Henry VIIL, by F. J. Furnivall, Esq., M.A. . . 24*

2. THE SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN THE

TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. BY THE LATE S. HICKSON, ESQ. 25*

• Mr Hickson's division of The Two Noble Kinsmen, coufirmd by

Metrical Tests, by the Rev. F. G. Fleay, M.A. . . . . 61*

Mr Hickson's division of The Ttco Noble Kinsmen, confirmd by

the Stopt-line Test, by F. J. Furnivall, Esq., M.A. . . . . 64*

3. ON THE METRE OF HENRY VIII. BY MR RODERICK (BEFORE

1757 A.D.) 66*

INDEX to the whole volume 69*

PROSPECTUS OF THE "NEW SHAKSPERE SOCIETY
FIRST REPORT OF THE SOCIETY'S COMMITTEE

CONTENTS.

V. ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH. BY J. VY. HALES,

ESQ., M.A 255

Discussion on Paper V. (Porter in Macbeth : Mr Tom
Taylor, M.A., p. 270; Mr Furnivall, p. 273; Miss
Marshall, p. 283) 270

VI. ON CERTAIN PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE OF WHICH
PORTIONS WERE WRITTEN AT DIFFERENT PE
RIODS OF HIS LIFE. In Three Parts. BY THE REV.
F. G. FLEAY, M.A. :

PAIIT I. ALL 'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL . . . . 285

„ II. TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA AND TWELFTH

NIGHT .. .. .. .. ..287

„ III. TROYLUS AND CRESSIDA . . . . . . 304

Discussion on Paper VI. (Mr Furnivall) . . . . 318

VII. ON TWO PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE'S, THE VERSIONS
OF WHICH AS WE HAVE TtlEM ARE THE RE
SULTS OF ALTERATIONS BY OTHER HANDS. BY
THE REV. F. G. FLEAY, M.A. :

PART I. MACBETH . . . . . . . . . . 339

„ II. JULIUS C^SSAR . . . . . . . . 357

Discussion on Paper VII. (Mr Furnivall, p. 498 ; Mr
Hales, p. 505) 498

VIII. MR HALLIWELL'S HINT ON THE DATE OF CORIO-

LANUS, AND POSSIBLY OTHER ROMAN PLAYS . . 367

IX. THE POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE IN SHAK
SPERE'S TIME. BY RICHARD SIMPSON, ESQ., B.A. . . 371
Discussion on Paper IX. (Mr Hales) . . . . . . 509

X. THE POLITICS OF SHAKSPERE'S HISTORICAL
PLAYS. BY RICHARD SIMPSON, ESQ., B.A. :

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . 390

I. KING JOHN . . . . . . . . . . 397

II. RICHARD II. . . . . . . . . 400

III. HENRY IV. . . . . . . . . . . 411

IV. HENRY V. . . . . . . . . . . 410

V. HENRY VI. .. . . 419

CONTENTS.

PAGE
VI. RICHARD III. . . . . . . . . . . 423

VII. HENRY VIII. . . . . . . . . . . 425

VIII. DECAY OF THE NOBLES . . . . . . . . 426

IX. GROWTH OF THE CROWN . .• . . . . 432

X. GROWTH OF THE PEOPLE . . . . . . 438

xi. SHAKSPERE'S VIEW OF THE CHURCH . . . . 438

xn. SHAKSPERE'S POLITICS . . . . . . . . 440

CONCLUSION . . . . . . , . . . 441

XL ON THE "WEAK ENDINGS" OF SHAKSPERE, WITH
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE HISTORY OF THE VERSE-
TESTS IN GENERAL. BY JOHN K. INGRAM, LL.D. 442

APPENDIX. LIST OF LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS IN THE
PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE'S LAST PERIOD . . . . . . 457

XII. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S * DOZEN OR SIXTEEN
LINES'? BY W. T. MALLESON, B.A., UNIV. COLL.,
LONDON, AND J. R. SEELEY, M.A., PROFESSOR OF HISTORY
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE : . . . . . . 465

i. MR MALLESON'S ARGUMENT . . . . • . . 466

ii. PROFESSOR SEELEY'S COMMENTS ON MR MALLESON'S

PAPER, AND ON THE PLAY . . ' . . . . 474

in. MR MALLESON'S REJOINDER TO PROFESSOR SEELEY'S

COMMENTS . f . . , . . . . . 481

iv. PROFESSOR SEELEY'S FINAL REMARKS . . . . 487

Discussion on Paper XII. (Mr Furnivall, p. 498, and Note,
p. 511 ; Mr Simpson, p. 495 ; Dr Brinsley Nicholson, p.
495) 493

INDEX. (BY WM PAYNE, ESQ.) "69*

1874.

NOTICES OF MEETINGS.

OPENING MEETING AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE,

GOWER STREET, LONDON, W.C.,

FRIDAY, 13TH MARCH, 1874, AT 8 P.M.,

F. J. Furnivall, Esq., Director, in the Chair.

MR FURNIVALL said 1 : — Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow-Members
of the New Sbakspere Society, I lay on our table to-night proofs
of three papers by the Rev. F. G. Fleay, M.A., the first of which
will be read this evening. We give the first Paper out, because it
requires study at home after the Meeting; and because you will be able
to follow its arguments and statements at this Meeting far better when
you have the paper in your hands. The second Paper, for next time,
on Beaumont, Fletcher, and Massinger, is given out in order that we
may ask Members of the Society to take, or make up their minds to
take, any one play which is in the paper divided between two authors,
or assignd to one only, and then work-out by themselves at home,
and report to us at the next Meeting, whether they think Mr Fleay's
judgment is right as to the authors to whom he assigns the writing
of the different plays or parts of plays. The third document is
Mr Fleay's Table of the Quartos of Shakspere's Plays, with notes on
them. It will form an Appendix to the first paper.

Before I call on our friend Dr Abbott to read the paper to-night,
I wish to say a few words just of congratulation and thanks to the
Members of the Society present for their help to me and the Com-

1 This Report is from the short-hand writers' notes, with a few words
altered.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

VI. RICHARD III. . . . . . . . . . . 423

VII. HENRY VIII. . . . . . . . . . . 425

VIII. DECAY OF THE NOBLES . . . . . . . . 426

IX. GROWTH OF THE CROWN . .• . . . . 432

X. GROWTH OF THE PEOPLE . . . . . . 438

xi. SHAKSPERE'S VIEW OF THE CHURCH . . . . 438

xn. SHAKSPERE'S POLITICS . . . . . . . . 440

CONCLUSION . . . . . . , . . . 441

XL ON THE "WEAK ENDINGS" OF SHAKSPERE, WITH
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE HISTORY OF THE VERSE-
TESTS IN GENERAL. BY JOHN K. INGRAM, LL.D. 442

APPENDIX. LIST OF LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS IN THE
PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE'S LAST PERIOD . . . . . . 457

XII. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S < DOZEN OR SIXTEEN
LINES'? BY W. T. MALLESON, B.A., UNIV. COLL.,
LONDON, AND J. R. SEELEY, M.A., PROFESSOR OF HISTORY
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE : . . . . . . 465

i. MR MALLESON'S ARGUMENT . . . . - . . 466

II. PROFESSOR SEELEY 'S COMMENTS ON MR MALLESON'S

PAPER, AND ON THE PLAY . . ' . . . . 474

in. MR MALLESON'S REJOINDER TO PROFESSOR SEELEY'S

COMMENTS . , . . , . . . . . 481

iv. PROFESSOR SEELEY'S FINAL REMARKS . . . . 487

Discussion on Paper XII. (Mr Furnivall, p. 498, and Note,
p. 511 ; Mr Simpson, p. 495 ; Dr Brinsley Nicholson, p.
495) 493

INDEX. (BY WM PAYNE, ESQ.) , . . . . ." 69*

1874.

NOTICES OF MEETINGS.

OPENING MEETING AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE,

GOWER STREET, LONDON, W.C.,

FRIDAY, 13TH MARCH, 1874, AT 8 P.M.,

F. J. Furnivall, Esq., Director, in the Chair.

MR FURNIVALL said l : — Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow-Members
of the New Shakspere Society, I lay on our table to-night proofs
of three papers by the Rev. F. G. Fleay, M.A., the first of which
will be read this evening. We give the first Paper out, because it
requires study at home after the Meeting; and because you will be able
to follow its arguments and statements at this Meeting far better when
you have the paper in your hands. The second Paper, for next time,
on Beaumont, Fletcher, and Massinger, is given out in order that we
may ask Members of the Society to take, or make up their minds to
take, any one play which is in the paper divided between two authors,
or assignd to one only, and then work-out by themselves at home,
and report to us at the next Meeting, whether they think Mr Fleay's
judgment is right as to the authors to whom he assigns the writing
of the different plays or parts of plays. The third document is
Mr Fleay's Table of the Quartos of Shakspere's Plays, with notes on
them. It will form an Appendix to the first paper.

Before I call on our friend Dr Abbott to read the paper to-night,
I wish to say a few words just of congratulation and thanks to the
Members of the Society present for their help to me and the Com-

1 This Report is from the short-hand writers' notes, with a few words
altered.

Vi NOTICES OF MEETINGS, 1874. DIRECTOR'S OPENING SPEECH.

mittee in founding this Society, and in setting on foot a fresh institu
tion for the study of Shakspere, on what I hope will prove the
soundest basis that has yet been laid for the structure of criticism
and study that shall throw light on our great poet and his works.

I hope, and believe, that the support the Society has met with
has at once witnesst to the interest that is taken in SHAKSPERE by
all Englishmen, and also to some considerable dissatisfaction with
the fact that no Shakspere Society has existed for something like 30
years. I hope it is felt to be the duty of Englishmen to study
Shakspere. And yet I can only say for myself — and this has been
confinnd by almost every friend I have spoken to on the subject —
that I feel it quite humiliating and lamentable to find that, although
we have the greatest author of the world belonging to our nation, yet
of the ordinary educated Englishmen you speak to (as a Captain in the
army said to me the other day), not one in 20 — or shall we say 20,0001
— has any real notion of Shakspere. Although the average English
man may have read a play or so, he has no notion of the character
istics, the periods, or succession of Shakspere's works, and can tell
next to nothing about the poet himself. He does not know whether
Love's Labour 's Lost comes after the Tempest or before it ; whether
Shakspere began with Comedy, History, or Tragedy ; whether his
mind and purpose grew greater and more earnest with advancing
years ; whether his changes of metre and phrase bore witness to this
growth or not.

I hope we shall be able to do something to alter this state of things,
and make a better one possible.

The purpose of our Society, as you have seen in our Prospectus,
is, by a very close study of the metrical and phraseological peculiarities
of Shakspere, to get his plays as nearly as possible into the order in
which he wrote them ; to check that order by the higher tests of
imaginative power, knowledge of life, self-restraint in expression,
weight of thought, depth of purpose ; and then to use that revised
order for the purpose of studying the progress and meaning of Shak
spere's mind, the passage of it from the fun and word-play, the light
ness, the passion, of the Comedies of Youth, through the patriotism
(still with comedy of more meaning) of the Histories of Middle Age,
to the great Tragedies dealing with the deepest questions of man in
Later Life ; and then at last to the poet's peaceful and quiet home-life
again in Stratford, where he ends with his Prospero and Miranda, his
Leontes finding again his wife and daughter in Hermione and Perdita ;
in whom we may fancy that the Stratford both of his early and late
days lives again, and that the daughters he saw there, the sweet
English maidens, the pleasant country scenes around him, passt as
it were again into his plays. So that, starting with him in London,
full of the brilliant wit and word-play of its society, seen in Love's
Labour's Lost, yet with the recollection of all his greenwood life and
his pleasant youth at Stratford, which we see reflected in such plays

NOTICES OF MEETINGS, 1874. DIRECTOR'S OPENING SPEECH. vil

as The Midsvmmer Niglifs Dream, — we at last get him, after going
through all the emotions and struggles in the world almost in his
London life, representing to us the thought, the deepest purpose
of the Elizabethan Era ; we get him at last down quietly in his
country home again, with the beauty of that country, wife and girl,
and friends around him ; with sheep-shearings to be talkt of, and
Perdita with the Spring flowers to be lovd, and everything else
serenely enjoy d ; and so he ends his life.

1 think that even a sketch like this, if we can carry it in our
minds, helps to bring his course in life nearer home to us. It
enables one to read his plays with a kind of purpose, to fit them into
their places in the series, and see what they mean. Of course I do
not pretend in any way to give a proper sketch of Shakspere's pro
gress ; I am wholly unfit to go through those great plays, so well
treated by Gervinus, like Lear and others, which dwell on the faith
lessness of friends and children. Whether these really represent
any great movements in Shakspere's own mind from his personal
history, or whether they allude to the political events of the time, I
cannot tell. The relation of Shakspere's stage to Politics is a matter
which will, I hope, be dealt with afterwards by one of our Members,
Mr Simpson, whose presence we welcome here to-night. The other
deeper questions will, I trust, be treated by the best heads in Eng
land, Mr Tennyson, Mr Spedding, and the like — if like there be.

In the course of the making of this Society I am glad to say we
have had two very great helps. First has come forward Mr Fleay, who
for five or six years had been working at the very metrical points
which I desired most to get set before the Public in general, and the
Members here especially ; not only the one stopt-line point that I
had worked at slightly myself, but a number of other metrical tests
which will be brought before us to-night. Of these, Mr Fleay values
especially that of the rymes, — the passage of Shakspere from
rymes to blank verse, — which he says he finds to be the most trust
worthy of all his tests, for the succession of Shakspere's plays. By
his other metrical tests, Mr Fleay has been able also to detect the
spurious passages in Shakspere's plays ; to point out often the
writers of them ; to distinguish the works of Beaumont from those
of Fletcher ; to show in what plays Beaumont or Massinger helpt
Fletcher, and so on, as you will see in Mr Fleay 's second Paper, a
Paper in which, as I believe, he has conferrd a truly great benefit
on the literary public of England, and on the students of our Middle
Literature in particular.

The second great help I count to be the coming forward of Mr
.Richard Simpson, who has devoted many years of his life to the
special study of the manner in which the plays of the Elizabethan
and Jacobite eras illustrate the political life of the time. For if, as
Shakspere says, " all the world 's a stage, and all the men and
women merely players ; " if he thought the purpose of his dramas

Viii NOTICES OF MEETINGS, 1874. DIRECTOR'S OPENING SPEECH.

was " to hold the mirror up to Nature," we must find reflected in
those dramas, — not directly, perhaps, on account of the Tudors and
Stuarts not allowing much freedom of reference to political events
going on at the time, — but indirectly we must find reflections of
some of the great and stirring movements which went on in Eliza
bethan and Jacobite times ; and I hope, after we have done the close
work which we want to start with on all the metrical points, we
may have from Mr Simpson a series of papers on the relations which
Shakspere's drama, and the general contemporary drama, bear
to the great political events of his times. Of course the subject is
very much more vague than, and its outlines cannot be so closely
determind as, those of metre. We are here on much unsteadier
ground, and Mr Simpson puts his views hypothetically ; but I feel
sure that he will be able to throw considerable light on the great
struggle between the policies of Essex and Cecil, and give us a clearer
view of the Elizabethan time by that means.

All our other helpers, past, present, and future, I desire to thank.
I hope that the kind words to us of many of those highest in our
literature now, will take form in act some day. There is no man or
woman of them but can write something to make us understand
Shakspere better, and bring him home to us more. May they soon
do it !

For the outward facts of Shakspere's life, Mr HalliwelTs devotion
of search leaves us little to do. But here, too, I hope our Society
may give a little help, as indeed it already has done.

With regard to the formation of the Society I wish to say a word
or two, because some people have complaind that I have taken too
much on myself in this matter. I can only say that I formd this
Society in the same way that I formd all the other Societies I
have founded ; that is, having a special work to get done, I askt
people to come forward and help to do it. I didn't ask people in
general to come forward, and tell me what to do, because I knew
(more or less) what special things I wanted done ; and when this was
the case, I have always found the best way was, to say so, and let
anybody who thought your object a worthy one, come forward and
offer to help in attaining it. But to let a number of people come
together haphazard, sit down on your objects, and turn your means
to other ends, is a way I don't see the good of; a way I never have
taken, and never mean to take.

Of course, though, after this first work is done, that I have askt
the Society to do, I hope there will be no department of work re
lating to Shakspere that the Committee will not be willing to take
up in due season.

From to-night I cease to be the sole Controller of the Society,
as I have just handed it over, in full working order, to the Com
mittee of Workers, who have so kindly associated themselves with
'me. The management of the Society will henceforth be in their

NOTICES OF MEETINGS, 1874. DIRECTOR'S OPENING SPEECH. ix

hands. The work wanted is tolerably well provided for, so far as
Papers are concerned, for this season, while Mr Simpson will give us
more afterwards, besides other friends who have also promist Papers.
Professor Leo of Berlin has already promist a Paper, and I hope
for others from Professors Delias and Elze, besides English friends.

But we want always first a certain income for the Society. I am
glad to say we have about 250 members to begin with. I hope that
means 500 before the end of the year. Of course, though, the new
men will not come of themselves ; and I hope every member of the
Society will do his best to bring in a few friends, so that the Society
may have money enough to do its work with.

The next work for Members will be to form Eeading-Parties in
their own circles of friends, to read Shakspere chronologically at one
another's houses, having a discussion after each Paper, and using
such helps as they can get from Gervinus, Schlegel, Mrs Jamie-
son, and any other Shakspere-writers they can get hold of, just to
start the writer of the short Paper to open each discussion. Thus we
may get an enormous increase in the study of Shakspere. If any
body can get a large enough number of these private clubs, to join,
or otherwise make a branch of our Society in any place, I hope they
will, and then read our papers sent in proof in advance, so that when
we read a paper here, we may have discussions going on at the same
time all over England. That is what I do want to see : a really
national study of Shakspere ; which we have never had yet, which I
am sure we ought to have, and which if we could but have, — all our
young fellows being traind on Shakspere's thoughts and words, —
we should have a much finer nation of Englishmen than we have
now.

This being the case, it is a part of our work in which every member
of the Society can help ; every one has friends round him, more or
less ; every one may be connected with some Society, or may have a
chance of introducing the work in some Mechanics' Institutes, or in
stitutions of that kind. Our object is, to sow all over England, and
every English-speaking land, the widest study of Shakspere, on the
sound basis which, as I believe, this Society's work can give to
people ; and I am sure the pleasure and advantage that the sharers
in it will get from it is extremely great. By this means too I hope
we shall get a new set of students of Shakspere, training to be editors
of his plays and his poems ; for we shall, of course, want in the
Society men to bring out the, at all events, truer series of plays
which we have already set on foot, and of which the first, Romeo
and Juliet in its two texts, — its first sketch and the enlargd edi
tion (which is the play as we have it) — is being edited by Mr Daniel,
a faithful student for many years of Shakspere, who is giving to it
all the loving care he can bestow.

The next bit of work I have already mentiond ; and that is, that
those members who are here should take the proofs of Mr Fleay's

X NOTICES OP MEETINGS, 1874. DIRECTOR'S OPENING SPEECH.

Papers home to-night, and look over that second paper, which will
be read next time, on Beaumont, Fletcher, and Massinger, and just
take a play a-piece, read it through to verify Mr Fleay's results, and
then be able to tell us next time whether these results are trust
worthy; or, if not, what is to be said against them, so that these
objections can be reported to Mr Fleay, and he can consider them in
an Appendix to his Paper.

There is another question that I may allude to. There has been
some opposition to the formation of the Society ; partly to myself,
because I am unknown as a Shaksperean student. It is true that I
am but a mere student, who knows nothing, and wants to know
more. Am I to be blamed because I try to take the means I think
best to that end ? I have already heard that another Shakspere
Society is to be founded by some men who have opposed me. I can
only say that I welcome the announcement most heartily. I wish
there were a hundred Shakspere Societies in London, with a thou
sand members each, and the like number in proportion in every
town and village in England. We cannot have too much of Shak
spere. The more we have of the study of him, so that personalities
are kept apart, the better we shall be, and the better England
will be.

We are gatherd together to pay honour to our greatest man ;
not in any way to glorify ourselves, but to lead as many of our
nation as we can, and as many English-speaking worlds around us as
we can, to a more intelligent and appreciating, as well as a more
reverent study of Shakspere than has hitherto been carried on.

Looking at the Winter's Tale only two days ago, I could not help
thinking that our work might be fairly called laying another chaplet
at Shakspere's feet ; and I hope it is a fit wreath for Shakspere in
this spring-time of our new study in Britain. Let us, then, with his
last, so sweet, creation, call for Perdita's " Flowers o' th' Spring : "

0 Proserpina,

For the Flowres now, that (frighted) thou let'st fall
From Dysses Waggon : Daifadils,
That come before the Swallow dares, and take
The windes of March with beauty : Violets (dim,
But sweeter then the lids of lunrfs eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath,) pale Prime-roses,
That dye vnmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, (a Maladie
Most incident to Maids :) bold Oxlips, and
The Crowne Imperiall : Lillies of all kinds,
(The Flowre-de-Luce being one.) 0, these I lacke,
To make you Garlands of,) and my sweet friend,
To strew him o're, and ore.

Tlie Winter's Tale, iv. 4 (p. 292 Booth's reprint).

NOTICES OF MEETINGS, 1874. MEETING OF MARCH 13.

XI

Pale the hue of our flowers of praise may be, and faint their odour :
but, such as they are, we lay them at SHAKSPERE'S feet, sure that

neuer any thing
Can be amisse, when simplenesse and duty tender it.

A Midsommer nights Dreame, v. 1, p. 160.

Mr Snelgrove, the Honorary Secretary, read the following list of
names of Members who had joind the Society since the issue of the first
printed List of Members, showing that on this, the evening of its first
meeting, the Society numberd 247 members : —

Athenaeum Lib., Boston, TJ. S. A.
Bedford Literary and Scientific

Institute.
Bedwell, Fras. A.
Bosanquet, Bernard.
Browning, Oscar.
Cavendish, Miss Ada.
Dalton, Eev. J. K
Edwards, Mrs.
HaU, Mrs F. C. K
Heberden, C. E.
Hirsch, Gustav.
Hockliffe, F.
Ingram, Prof. J. K.
Jarvis, Lewis.
Linton, Mrs Lynn.
Lisle, Miss A. T. U.
Lumby, Eev. J. Rawson.
Matthew, James E.
Matthew, J. W.
Maunsell, Edmund R. L.
Morris, E. E.
Munro, Rev. H. A. J.

Newcastle-on-Tyne Literary and

Philosophical Society.
Neil, Samuel.
Oxford Union Society.
Plunkett, George ET.
Reid, William Wardlaw.
Shakespeare Memorial Library,

Birmingham.
Stack, J. Herbert.
Tosh, Edmund G.
Ward, Charles A.
Zimmern, Miss.
Brown, W. Seton.
Smalley, George W.
Faber, Mrs.
Jones, Herbert.

Hay, Rear-Admiral Lord John.
Akroyd, Mrs W.
Howes, Captain H.
Marx, Francis.
Oswald, Eugene.
Queen's College, Oxford.
Jessop, Rev. Dr Augustus.

On the proposal of the Chairman the thanks of the Meeting were
voted to Professor Karl Elze for his present of a copy of his Paper
"ZuHeinrich VIII."1

The Director read a letter from Baron Albert Grant, announcing
that he proposed to put up a Statue of Shakspere in the centre
of Leicester Square, similar to the one of Moliere erected in the
Rue de Richelieu in Paris.

The Rev. Dr E. A. Abbott then read a Paper by the Rev. F. G.

1 See a short account of this Paper on p. 22* of the Appendix to this volume.

xii NOTICES OF MEETINGS, 1874, MARCH 13 AND 27.

Fleay, M.A., ' On Metrical Tests as applied to Dramatic Poetry :
Part I, Shakspere.' (This Paper is printed on p. 1 — 16 below.)

The Director askt the Members to return thanks to Mr Fleay for
the admirable paper which had been read. Whether the hearers
concurrd in the conclusions of the Paper or not, they must be
grateful for the stimulating nature of its contents, and the amount of
work and thought given to it. He would join with the Writer's
name, that of Dr Abbott, the Reader of the Paper. This vote of
thanks was carried unanimously.

A Discussion of the Paper then followed, in which Mr Furnivall,
Mr R. Simpson, Dr Abbott, Mr A. J. Ellis, Dr Brinsley Nicholson,
and Mr E. Oswald took part. A condensd report of the Discussion
is printed after the first Paper, 011 p. 17 below.

SECOND MEETING. Friday, March 27, 1874.
F. J". FURNIVALL, Esq., Director, in the Chair.

THE Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirind.

The Chairman announcd that Madame Gervinus of Heidelberg, the
widow of the late Prof. G. G. Gervinus, the great German Com
mentator on Shakspere, had consented to become one of the Vice-
Presidents of the Society. The Chairman congratulated the Meeting
on having the honourd name of Gervinus added to the 'list of the
Society's Officers.

The Hon. Sec., Mr Snelgrove, read the following list of names of
Members who had joind the Society since its last Meeting : —

Phillimore, Rt. Hon. Sir R. J. Hetherington, J. Newby.

Cooper, J. F. Hamilton, Miss Lottie.

Gabbett, Henry S. Williams, Sparks Henderson.

Atty, George. Percival, Rev. J.

Lushington, Professor E. L. Ramsay, W. M.

Finlinson, W. Gerich, F. E.

Shadwell, Lionel L. Jex-Blake, Rev. Dr T. W.

Smith, Miss Lucy Toulmin. Robinson, Charles.

MacCarthy, D. F. Swan, Robert.

Day, Miss Elsie. Halliwell, R. A.

Phipson, Miss E. Faber, R. S.

Rushbrooke, W. G. Ponsonby, The Hon. F. G. B.

Dames, M. L. Browne, Mrs S. Woolcott.

Ratcliffe, Charles. Browne, Miss.

Butler, Rev. Dr H. M. Jones, Rev. James.

Ridding, Rev. Dr George. Harper, John, Ph.D.

NOTICES OF MEETINGS, 1874. MEETING OF MARCH 27. xiii

Harcourt, Captain Alfred. Furnivall, Mrs.

Sheppard, C. W. Boyd, T. A.

Sassoon, J. S. Napier, G. W.

Fish, A. J. Gervinus, Madame.

Dickson, Samuel. Sprong, T. White.

Ashurst, Eichard L. Greenhalgh, James.

Biddle, A. Sydney. "Watkin, Alfred.

Brown, H. Armitt. Heron, Sir Joseph.

Vezin, Alfred. Barlow, Mark.
Blight, George, Jr.

Proofs were distributed to the Members present, of 1. Mr Fleay's
two Appendixes to his first Paper, giving two fresh Tables of Pro
portions of the Eyme to Blank-verse in Shakspere's Plays, and Com
ments on them, and on certain objections to his Order of the Plays on
p. 10 below, which he justified 2. Mr Fleay's Paper on The Taming
of the Shrew, for April 24. 3. The Appendix to the Society's
Transactions, 1874, containing, I. Mr James Spedding's Paper on
" The several Shares of Shakspere and Fletcher in the Play of
Henry VIIL," with Confirmations of Mr Spedding's Eesults by the
late S. Hickson, Esq., and Mr Fleay. II. The late Mr S. Hickson's
Paper on "The several Shares of Shakspere and Fletcher in The
Two Noble Kinsmen" with a Confirmation by Mr Fleay.

The Chairman announcd that the Society would hold an extra
Meeting on July 10 ; and that the Paper on that evening would
be,—

"On the Historical Allusions in Richard II"; by Eichard
Simpson, Esq., B.A.

The Paper read by the Bev. Dr E. A. Abbott was, —

" On the Application of Metrical Tests to determine the Author
ship and Chronological Succession of Dramatic Writings. Part II.,
Fletcher, Beaumont, Massinger ; " by the Eev. F. G. Fleay, M. A.

The thanks of the Meeting were voted to the Writer and Eeader
of the Paper. Discussions then followd, first of this Paper, and
then of Mr Fleay's first Paper on the Order of Shakspere's Plays.
Eeports of the Discussions are printed after the First and Second
Papers below. In these discussions Mr Furnivall, Dr Abbott, Dr
Brinsley Nicholson, and Mr Hales took part ; and a letter by Mr
James Spedding was read, arguing that the ryme-test misst the
most important sign of Shakspere's growth, his rejection of super
fluous imagery, his packing his words closer with thought, in short,
his improvement in style. (Another letter from Mr Spedding, in
substitution for the one read, will be found printed in the Dis
cussion after Paper I.)

Xiv NOTICES OF MEETINGS, 1874. MEETING OF APRIL 24.

THIRD MEETING. Friday, April 24, 1874.
F. J. FURNIVALL, ESQ., Director, in the Chair.

PROOFS of Mr Fleay's Papers on Timon of Athens and Pericles,
with prints of Shakspere's part of both plays, were distributed to
the Members.

The Minutes of last Meeting were read and confirmd.

The Chairman announced that H. R. H. Prince Leopold had
consented to become a Vice-President of the Society.

The following Members were stated to have joined the Society
since the last Meeting, viz. : —

Manchester Union Club. C. F. Shimmin.

James Spedding. J. J. Storrow.

Henry Scott. W. G. Medlicott.

Colonel F. Cunningham. Cornell University, U. S. A.

Charles Edmonds. Vicary Gibbs.

Lord Carlingford. W. H. L. Shadwell.

Joseph Crosby. C. B. SlingluiF.

Gerard Thorpe. Library of Congress, Washington.

A. Reade. E. G. Allen.

Dr J. Todhunter. T. G. Rooper.

G. A. Greene. J. K. Esdaile.

Rev. C. W. P. Crawfurd. John Taylor.

Glasgow University Library. Earl of Southesk

V. J. Higgins. P. A. Taylor, M.P.

Thomas D. King. Mrs P. A. Taylor.

0. V. Morgan. Wm Best.

John T. Bedford. Prof. J. W. Barlow.

T. L. Kington-Oliphant. Robert Bowes.

F. Haven, Junr.

The Paper for this evening, by the Rev. F. G. Fleay, viz. " On
the Authorship of the Taming of the Shrew, with Remarks on
Titus Andronicus," was read by the Rev. Dr Abbott.

The thanks of the Meeting were voted to Mr Fleay and to Dr
Abbott.

In the discussion of the Paper the following gentlemen took
part : Mr Furnivall, Mr Simpson, Mr Ellis, Dr Abbott, Dr Nicholson,
Mr Wheatley.

NOTICES OF MEETINGS, 1874. MEETING OP MAY 8. XV

FOURTH MEETING. Friday, May 8, 1874.
F. J. FURNIVALL, ESQ., Director, in the Chair.

THE Minutes of last Meeting were read and connrmd.

The Chairman reported that Mr Henry Hucks Gibbs, M.A.,
Oriel ColL, Oxford, the Deputy-Governor of the Bank of England,
&c., had been appointed a Vice-President ; also, that new Branches
of the Society had been formed at Montreal, Canada (Thomas D.
King, Esq., Hon. Sec.), and at Owen's College, Manchester.

The names of the following new Members were read : —

Miss Marshall. Mrs S. P. Newcombe.

W. H. Cullingford. Mrs J. P. Norris.

RJSV. Dr Morgan. George White.

M. Harris. Rev. Wm. Randall.

R. R. D. Adams. Edward Rigge Lloyd.

Rev. C. Crowden. St Columba's College, Dublin.

Robert Guy. Rev. W. G. Carroll.

Joseph Payne. J. G. Fitch.

Rev. T. M. Berry, K Storojenke.

S. Prout Newcombe. Lionel Booth.

Mr Hales's Paper for the next Meeting (viz. " On the Character
of the Porter in Macbeth ") not being printed and ready for distri
bution this evening, the Director stated that Mr Hales would argue
for the genuineness of the scene. The Director also suggested that,
as there might not be much room for discussion on the point,
Members should prepare themselves to discuss whether Messrs Clark
and "Wright's theory — stated in the Preface to their Clarendon
Press School-Series edition — was right, that Middleton had inserted
the 4-measure ryming lines in the witch-scenes, and otherwise
toucht the Play.

Part I. of the Paper for this evening — " On the Authorship of
Tlmon of A thens, by the Rev. F. G. Fleay," was read by the Rev.
Dr Abbott, and the thanks of the Meeting were voted to the writer
and reader of the Paper.

The following Members spoke in the discussion of this Paper :
Mr Furnivall, Mr Simpson, Dr Nicholson, Dr Abbott.

Of Mr Fleay 's second Paper — " On the Play of Pericles" Mr
Furnivall gave a summary of the general results, and stated that
the portions of Pericles printed by Mr Fleay coincided exactly — to
the best of his recollection — with those pickt out by Mr Tennyson
as genuine Shakspere 40 years ago, and read to him (Mr F.) last
autumn by Mr Tennyson. Other points in the Paper were dis-
cusst by Mr Furnivall and Mr P. A. Daniel.

TRANSACTIONS. b

Xvi NOTICES OF MEETINGS, 1874. MEETINGS OF MAY 22 AND JUNE 12.

FIFTH MEETING. Friday, May 22, 1874.
TOM TAYLOR ESQ., Vice-President, in the Chair.

THE Minutes of last Meeting were read and connrrad.

The Hon. Secretary reported that the Countess of Ducie had
been appointed a Vice-President.

The names of the following new Members since the last Meeting
were read : —

L. C. Burt. Berlin Royal Library.

Edward Berry. Captain A. Walker.

Mrs Edward Berry. W. Watson Lamb.

John Bullock. Miss West.

Dublin University Shakspere Soc. Edwyn V. Brander.
W. Oechelhaeuser (Dessau). F. C. Hutchins.

A. Cohn (Berlin). J. G. Strachan.

The Paper for this evening (read by the writer) was " On the
Porter in Macbeth, by J. W. Hales, M.A."

A vote of thanks was given to Mr Hales.

The remarks on the Paper were commenced by tfce Chairman,
who argued for the genuineness of the part in question on practical
grounds ; the exigencies of stage-management necessitating the in
troduction of some such scene and speech as the Porter's.

Mr Furnivall, Mr Oswald, Miss Marshall, and Mr Hales took
part in the discussion of the Paper.

During the discussion Mr Hales suggested that the literary con
nection between Milton and Shakspere (to which an incidental
reference had been made) should form a subject for the future con
sideration of the Society.

SIXTH MEETING. Friday, June 12, 1874.
ALEX. J. ELLIS, ESQ., V. P., in the Chair.

THE Minutes of last Meeting were read and con fir md.
The names of the following new Members, who had joiud since
last Meeting, were read : —

Samuel Clark, Junr. A. G. Symonds.

Mrs Stephen Ralli. J. J. Doyle.

Geo. W. Eusden. R. J. Gilman.

F. A. Marshall. Royal Dublin Society.

F. J. Faraday. Claude J. Monteliore.

Joseph Ogden. E. S. Gaisford.

J, E. Bailey. Mrs Lafontaine Erskine.

The Paper (read partly by the Rev. Dr E. A. Abbott, and partly
by Mr Furnivall) was by Mr Fleay, " On certain Plays of Shakspere,

NOTICES OP MEETINGS, 1874. MEETING OF JUNE 26. Xvll

of which Portions were written at different Periods of his life, in
four Parts: I. Richard II; II. AUs Well That Ends Well; III.
Two Gentlemen of Verona and Twelfth Night ; IV. Troylus and
Cressida."

The thanks of the Meeting were voted to Mr Fleay, and to Dr
Abbott and Mr Furnivall, the writer and readers of the Paper.

In the Discussion, Messrs Furnivall, Eusden, Abbott, Oswald,
Collet, and Ellis, took part.

SEVENTH MEETING. Friday, June 26, 1874.
F. J. FURNIVALL, ESQ., Director, in the Chair.

THE Minutes of last Meeting were read and coiifirnid.

The Director stated that Dr Brinsley Nicholson had joind the
Committee.

The names of new Members were announced as follows : —
R W. Norman. T. C. Fawcett.

George Murray. Wm Hall.

Rev. Dr Cornish. John Harris.

S. E. Dawson. Mrs John LovelL

F. Griffin, Q.C. James Eowley.

Mrs Joseph Tiffin, Junr. A. D. 0. Wedderburn.

Wm H. Kerr, Q.C. Mrs Jellicoe.

Mrs John Lewis. J. A. Brown.

McGill College, Montreal. P. C. Sen.

S. Bethune, Q.C.

The -Director took the opportunity of stating that copies of the
Papers VI. & VII. , and of his remarks (at the last and present
Meetings) thereon, had not been issued together designedly, but in
natural course, and at the printer's convenience.

The Director reported the receipt of " Notes on North's Plutarch,"
by Mr Allan Park Paton, presented by the writer ; for which it was
resolved to return the thanks of the Meeting.

The first Paper for this evening, by the Rev. F. G. Fleay, was
entitled " On two Plays of Shakspere's, the versions of which, as we
have them, are the results of alterations by other hands ; Part I.
Macbeth ; Part II. Julius Ccesar ; " and was read by Mr F. D.
Matthew.

The thanks of the Meeting were voted to the writer and reader
of the Paper respectively.

The following gentlemen took part in the discussion of Mr
Fleay's views, viz. : -Messrs Furnivall, Payne, Matthew, Hales.

The second Paper was "Mr Halliwell's Hint on the date of
Coriolanus, and possibly other Roman Plays," by Mr Furnivall.

The thanks of the Meeting were given to Mr Halliwell and the
Director.

Xviii NOTICES OF MEETINGS, 1874. MEETING OF JULY 10.

EIGHTH MEETING. Friday, July 10, 1874.
F. J. FURNIVALL, ESQ., Director, in the Chair.

THE Minutes of last Meeting were read and confirmd.

The Director reported the recent retirement of the Rev. F. G.
Fleay from the Committee, and the appointment this evening of Dr
Brinsley Nicholson as a Member thereof.

The following new Members were announced as having joind
the Society since the Meeting on the 26th alt.

H. Courthope Bo wen. George M. Diven.

Dr J. M. Da Costa. A. A. Healy.

Colonel E. C. James. James C. Welling.

Prof. F. A. March. W. J. Rolfe.

Prof. J. M. Peirce. Mrs L. T. Morris.

Moses F. Wilson. The Bishop of Montreal.

Minneapolis Athenaeum. Edinburgh Shakspere Society.

J. 0. Sargent. Leslie Stephen.

George H. Gould. Franklin Lushington.

Mr Furnivall read letters showing the progress of the Bedford and
Edinburgh Branches of the Society, and shortly reviewd the work of
the Session. He stated that the next Session would be opend by a
Paper on the "Politics of Shakspere's Historical Plays," by Mr Simpson.

The Director explaind, generally, the resolutions which the Com
mittee had adopted, as to the work of the Society in the next
Session ; the following being the principal thereof : —

That a Revision Committee, consisting of the Director, the Rev.
Dr Abbott, and Mr Hales, had been appointed to superintend the
printing of all Papers and Discussions :

That the Meetings of Members would in future be held once a
month only, viz. : on the second Friday in each month from October
to June (both inclusive) :

That the primary object to be kept in view by the Society
should be the printing of Texts and Parallel Texts of the various
works of Shakspere, and also the printing of any illustrative remains
(not already accessible) of the contemporary drama :

That Members are in future invited to furnish a written abstract
of the remarks made by them during the discussions of any Papers,
in order to facilitate the work of the Revision Committee.

The Paper for this evening was " On the Political use of the
Stage in Shakspere's Time, by Richard Simpson, Esq., B. A.," and
was read by the author.

The thanks of the Meeting were voted to Mr Simpson for his Paper.

Mr Furnivall, Mr Hales, Dr Nicholson, ard Dr Abbott, took
part in the discussion.

The Meetings of the Society were then adjournd until Friday,
the 9th Oct. next.

NOTICES OF MEETINGS, 1874, OCTOBER 9 AND NOVEMBER 13. XIX

NINTH MEETING. Friday, October 9, 1874.
F. J. FURNIVALL, ESQ., Director, in the Chair.

THE Minutes of last Meeting were read.

The names of the following new Members were reported :

A. Duyschink. Rev. R. Temple.
Prof. T. R. Lounsbury.. Jonathan Hutchinson.

B. H. Ticknor. E. H. Pickersgill.
T. M. J. de W. Van Citters. G. Gordon Hake.
Prof. J. S. Hart. Win. Wilson.

Dr W. Wagner. H. Buxton Forman.

G. Storey Moor. Prof. G. Guizot.

Lenox Library, New York. Charles Weld.

The Director produc'd copies of the first two volumes of the
Society's Publications, being Part I. of Allusion Books and Part I.
of Transactions, and announced that copies would be issued to
Members during the next few days. He said, further, that all the
text of Mr Daniel's single and parallel-text editions of Romeo and
Juliet (viz. reprints of the First Two Quartos, the parallel-texts of
both, and Mr Daniel's revis'd text) was in type, and would be ready
for issue early next year. The Director also stated that Mr Grant
White had proinist a Paper on " The Advantage of Obsolescence to
Shakspere's Poetry," and that on December llth, before the discus
sion of Cymbeline, two Papers by Mr W. T. Malleson and Prof.
Seeley, on Hamlet's inserted speech of "a dozen or 16 lines," would
be read.

The Paper for this evening was " On the Politics of Shakspere's
Historical Plays," by Richard Simpson, Esq., and was read by Mr
Simpson : to whom the thanks of the meeting were given for his
Paper.

Mr Furnivall, Dr Nicholson, Mr Mathew, and Dr Abbott took
part in the discussion which followd the reading.

TENTH MEETING. Friday, November 13, 1874.
F. J. FURNIVALL, ESQ., Director, in the Chair.

THE Minutes of last Meeting were read.

The Director reported that H.R.H. Prince Leopold, one of the
Vice-Presidents, had expresst his intention of presenting to the

«>

XX NOTICES OF MEETINGS, 1874, NOVEMBER 13 AND DECEMBER 11.

Society the Parallel-Text Edition of the first two quartos of Romeo
and Juliet, which was now at press.

Also, that Dr Ingleby was about to present to every Member
(who had paid his subscription by November 7th) a copy of his
Shaksperian work entitled "The Still Lion."

The election of Prof. G. Guizot and the Eev. Dr Abbott as Vice-
Presidents was also reported.

The following new Members were announc'd : —

Baltimore City College (Dept. of A. S. Eoofe.

English Language and Liter- Rev. A. H. D. Acland.

ature). Chetham's Library.

J. Me Elmoyle. Jas. Crossley.

B. Casement. W. E. Morfill.

E. K. Corbett. Jas. E. Hardy.

Sunday Shakspere'Society. John Jackson.

Edward Bent. F. J. Lawrence.

Thos. Dixon. Alex. Skene.

H. D. Clark. . Lieut. Greely.

A. B. Stark, LL.D. H. A. Evans.

The Director stated that on 1 2th Feb. next a Paper would be
read "On Ben Jonson's Phrases, Words, and Allusions," by Mr
H. C. Hart,1 and that Mr W. J. Craig of Trinity College, Dublin,
had undertaken to edit Cymlelirw, by (a) a Reprint of the Folio of
1623 Text, and (b) a revis'd Edition with Introduction and Notes.

The Paper for this evening — " On the Weak Endings of Shak-
spere," by J. K. Ingram, Esq., LL.D., Trin. Coll., Dublin, was read
by A. J. Ellis, Esq., V.P.

The thanks of the meeting were voted to the Writer of the Paper,
and to Mr Ellis.

Mr Ellis, Mr Furnivall, and Mr Simpson took part in the dis
cussion which followd.

ELEVENTH MEETING. Friday, December 11, 1874.
F. J. FURNIVALL, ESQ., Director, in the Chair.

THE Minutes of last Meeting were read.

The following new members were reported to have joind the
Society since the last Meeting : —

1 Mr Hart having afterwards been appointed Botanist to the Arctic
Expedition, his friend Professor Dowden kindly furnisht, instead of Mr Hart's,
a Paper of his own, on the German Critics of Shakspere. This, recast and
enlargd, will appear in Tlie Quarterly Review.

NOTICES OF MEETINGS, 1874, DECEMBER 11.

XXI

H. C. Hart.

Peter Bayne.

Rev. W. R. Bayley.

J. A. Breinner.

R. Mather.

W. Collet.

Bedford Shakespeare Society.

Rafe Leycester.

J. H. Haworth.

Dublin University Lib.

J. M. Gordon.

John Morgan.

Post Office Lib. and Lit. Assoc.

Mercantile Library Association of

San Francisco.
Hy Howard.
Jas. Peirce.
Dr W. Legg.

Baltimore Mercantile Lib. Assoc.
Hy Dozell.
Rev. G. Macaulay.
London Institution.

A Paper by Mr "W". B. Malleson " On Hamlet's inserted speech of
' a dozen or sixteen lines ' with reference to Prof. Seeley's view that
the speech was in Act III. Sc. ii. 1. 198 — 223," was read by Mr Mal
leson, and the thanks of the meeting were voted to him.

Prof. J. R. Seeley's answer to Mr Malleson's Paper was then
read by Mr Fumivall, and the thanks of the Members were given to
Prof. Seeley.

In the discussion upon the above Papers, Messrs Fumivall, Simp
son, Bayne, Pickersgill, and Nicholson took part, and Mr Malleson
read an abstract of his written answer to Prof. Seeley's objections.

The discussion on the Play of Cymbeline — a second subject
appointed for this evening— was opend by Mr Fumivall, and con-
tinu'd by Dr Nicholson and Mr Jarvis.

PAPERS READ BEFORE

THB

NEW SHAKSPERE SOCIETY, 1874,

1. ON METRICAL TESTS AS APPLIED TO
DRAMATIC POETRY.

PART I. SHAKSPERE. BY THE REV. F. G. FLEAY, M.A.

(Read at the Opening Meeting at Univ. Coll., London, March 13, 1874.

THIS subject has scarcely at all, and never systematically, been
hitherto worked out. The portion of the dramatic literature of Eng
land to which I have directed my attention in this respect has been
part of that which is usually called the Elizabethan period, and com
prises the following authors : Greene, Peele, Marlowe, Ben Jonson,
Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Massinger, Ford, Marston, and
Shakspere, in their entire works, and portions of Dekker, Middleton,
Rowley, Chapman, Heywood, and others. My first two papers are
designed to gather together the results I have arrived at with regard to
some of the greatest of these, viz. Massinger, Beaumont, Fletcher,
and especially Shakspere. But before entering into details it may
be advisable, as the subject is new to so many, to endeavour to clearly
point out the nature of these tests and their object. First, then, as
to their nature. Malone and others had long ago been struck by
the difference of style in Shakspere's plays produced at different
periods, and had in a vague sort of way used one of these tests at
any rate as an indication of chronological arrangement. I allude to
the frequency of rhyming lines. Bathurst has since also indicated
a metrical test for the same purpose, viz. the unstopped line. But
the vague manner in which the rhyme test has been used may be
shown by one example : Hallam in his ' Literature of Europe ' says,
" Were I to judge by internal evidence, I should be inclined to

TRANSACTIONS. 1

2 I. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO SHAKSPERE.

place this play " (i. e. Romeo and Juliet) " before the Midsummer
Night's Dream ; " and then alleges, among other reasons as a justifi
cation of this inference, " the great frequency of rhymes " in Romeo
and Juliet. Now, in fact, there are, as will be seen on reference to
the table, p. 16, nearly twice as many rhymes in Midsummer Night's
Dream : so that the argument actually tells the other way. I cannot
speak definitely as to the stopped-line test, not having worked it
out; but Bathurst's arrangement is evidently based only on the
general impression derived from reading the plays, — which in the
case of plays that were not written all at one time, or in one style,
is sure to be deceptive, — and to be founded chiefly on the last acts.
Beyond this I know of nothing that has been done of a similar
kind, except that in his examination of Henry VIII., Mr Spedding
tabulated the number of double endings in that play. This, how
ever, is the great step we have to take ; our analysis, which has
hitherto been qualitative, must become quantitative ; we must cease
to be empirical, and become scientific : in criticism as in other mat
ters, the test that decides between science and empiricism is this :
" Can you say, not only of what kind, but how much ? If you
cannot weigh, measure, number your results, however you may be
convinced yourself, you must not hope to convince others, or claim
the position of an investigator ; you are merely a guesser, a propounder
of hypotheses."

But is not metre too delicate a thing to be put in the balance or
crucible in this way] Is it possible so to examine the outer form
in which genius has clothed itself, as to obtain any definite results 1
Do not the great men of any particular time resemble each other 1
Do not the lesser men imitate them 1 Can we always distinguish
Tennyson from his imitators 1 and is not the trick of Swinburne's
melody easily acquired and reproduced] There is something in
these objections, but not much. We can always distinguish the
great men from each other by sufficient care ; and imitators, who
have no style of their own, seldom survive their own time to trouble
us. If they do, their intrinsic worthlessness shows up in some
way or other, as we shall see in the course of these inquiries.

In order to show, however, the kind of work before us more

I. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO SHAKSPERE. 3

distinctly, I have taken a piece of Dryden's " All for Love" (10
lines), and written it, as far as metre (and metre only) is concerned,
in the styles of Fletcher, Beaumont, Massinger, Greene, and Rowley.
The original runs thus : —

I know thy meaning.

But I have lost my reason, have disgraced
The name of soldier with inglorious ease :
In the full vintage of my flowing honors
Sat still and saw it prest by other hands :
Fortune came smiling to my youth and wooed it,
And purple greatness met my ripen'd years.
When first I came to empire, I was borne
On tides of people crowding to my triumphs ;
The wish of nations and the willing world
Received me as its pledge of future peace.

Fletcher's metre.

I know thy meaning :

But I have lost my reason, and have disgraced me :
Inglorious ease has shamed my name of soldier.
In the full vintage of my flowing honors
I saw it prest by others hands and sat still :
Fortune came smiling to my youth and wooed it,
My ripend years were clothed in purple greatness :
When I first came to empire I was borne forth
On tides of people crowding to my triumphs,
The wish of nations and the willing world
As a dear pledge of its future peace received me.1

1 What should I do there then ? You are brave captains,
Most valiant men : go up yourselves : use virtue :
See what will come on't : pray the gentleman
To come down and be taken ? Ye all know him :
I think ye've felt him too : there ye shall find him,
His sword by his side : plumes of a pound weight by him,
Will make your chops ake : you'll find it a more labour
To win him living than climbing 'of a crow's nest.

Fletcher, Bonduca, v. 2.

4 I. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO SHAKSPERE.

Beaumont's.

I understand ; but now my reason 's lost :
My soldier's name by ease of little boast
I have disgraced ; yea, while my honor flowed
In vintage of the fullest, sat and saw
It prest by other hands : then to my youth
Came Fortune, wooing smilingly, and with
Th' imperial purple met my ripened years :
"When first I came to empire, on full tide
Of populous crowds to triumph I did ride,
The wish of nations : all men willingly
Received me as a pledge of peace to be.1

But Beaumont's style is often more like Massinger's,

Massinger's.

I know thy meaning, but have lost my sense,

And have disgraced the name of soldier with

Inglorious ease ; in the full vintage of

My flowing honors I sat still, and saw

It prest by other hands : and smiling Fortune

Came to my youth and wooed it. Purple greatness

Met my ripe years. When first I came to empire,

On tides of crowding people I was borne

To triumph. Yet the wish of nations and

The willing world received me as its pledge

Of future peace.3

1 Insatiate Julius, when his victories

Had run o'er half the world, had he met her,
There he had stopt the legend of his deeds,
Laid by his arms, been overcome himself,
And let her vanquish th' other half : and fame
Made beauteous Dorigen the greater name.
Shall I thus fall ? I will not : no, my tears
Cast in my heart shall quench these lawless fires ;
He conquers best, conquers his lewd desires.

Beaumont, Triu-nqrtt of Honor, sc. 2.

2 To all posterity may that act be crowned
With a deserved applause, or branded with

I. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO SHAKSPERE.

Greene's.

I know thy sense : but with inglorious ease
I've shamed my soldier's name ; my reason's fled.
Erewhile my honor flow'd in vintage full :
I sat and saw it prest by other hands :
Then Fortune came, and smiling wooed my youth :
And purple greatness met my ripen'd years.
And I was borne, when first I came to reign,
Triumphant on the tides of peopled crowds ;
The wish of many a race ; and the glad world
Received me as its pledge of future peace.

Rowley 's (at his worst, doing job-work).

I know thy meaning, but have lost reason
I have disgraced the name of soldier
With inglorious ease : in the full vintage
Of flowing honors, I sat still and saw
It prest by other hands. Smiling Fortune
Came to my youth and wooed it, and purple
Greatness met my ripen'd years. When at first
I came to empire, I was borne on tides

The mark of infamy ! stay yet — ere I take

This seat of justice or engage myself

To fight for you abroad or to reform

Your state at home, swear all upon my sword

And call the gods of Sicily to witness

The oath you take, that whatsoe'er I shall

Propound for safety of your commonwealth,

Not circumscribed or bound in, shall by you

Be willingly obeyed !— Massinger, Eondman, i. 3.

1 Fair queen of love, thou mistress of delight,
Thou gladsome lamp, that wait'st on Phoebe's train,
Spreading thy kindness through the jarring orbs,
That in their union praise thy lasting powers :
Thou that hast stayed the fiery Phlegon's course,
And made the coachman of the glorious wain
To droop in view of Daphne's excellence,
Fair pride of morn, sweet beauty of the even,
Witness Orlando's faith unto his love ! — Greene, Orluiule.

C I. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO SHAKSPEIIE.

Of people crowding unto my triumphs ;
The wish of nations and the willing world
Received me as its pledge of future peace.1

This hardly seems metre at all : "but it has its own law ; and pas
sages like the above have passed with some editors as Fletcher's.

These examples are sufficient to show what variety of styles may
exist in blank verse, and what I shall prove do exist in the authors
named. Moreover, these differences can be tabulated : the number of
lines with double endings; the number of rhyming lines; the number of
lines with more or less than five measures can be stated. But to what
purpose 1 If we learn nothing further from these tables, they are
useless. There are two ends to be served by such lists. If an
author has distinctly progressed in the manipulation of his art, if he
has different manners of work in different periods of his life, such
tables are very valuable for determining the chronological order of
his productions. This is the main use which the Director of our New
Shakspere Society anticipated from the application of metrical tests,
and the table I have formed for Shakspere's plays will, I have no
doubt, be useful for this purpose. But the far more important end,
from my point of view, will be the determination of the genuineness
of the works traditionally assigned to a writer. These metrical tests
made me suspect the genuineness of the Taming of the Shrew ; parts
of Timon and Pericles, and Henry VIII. , when I was not aware that
they had ever been suspected ; I hope the evidence I have gathered
on these, and on Henry VI., will be some furtherance to the objects
of our Society. These, however, must be treated in separate papers ; —
this one will, I fear, be too long as it is ; — and so must the examination
of Fletcher and Massinger, which I regard as far the most valuable
result of my work. I will only say here that I have discovered

Ant. But is it possible that two faces

Should be so twinn'd in form, complexion,

Figure, aspect, that neither wen nor mole,

The table of the brow, the eyes lustre,

The lips cherry, neither the blush nor smile

Should give the one distinction from the other ?

Does Nature work in moulds ?

Mart. Altogether !— Rowley, Maid o1 Mill, ii. 2.

I. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO SHAKSPERK. /

distinctive tests of their manners ; that some of the plays have "been
quite wrongly assigned by every editor; that Massinger's hand is
distinct in about nine of Fletcher's plays ; and that if the results of
the examination of Shakspere's text be unsatisfactory to any one (as
I doubt not they will be to some ; the problem is so very compli
cated), at any rate let them suspend their judgment as to the value
of metrical tests generally, till they see how simply that easier pro
blem of Fletcher's authorship is disposed of by them. I was of
opinion myself that this question should have been discussed first ;
but our Director overruled me, partly, no doubt, to get the Shak-
spere table in print as a guide for future workers in the same track.
I must now ask you to refer to the table constantly, so as to
verify the following conclusions. I suppose that no one will doubt
on other than metrical grounds, that Love's Labour 's Lost is one of
the earliest, and Winter's Tale one of the latest of Shakspere's
comedies. Let us, then, for simplicity begin by comparing these two.
In L. L. L. we find more than 1000 rhyming lines in the dialogue ;
in W. T. none. In L. L. L. only seven lines with double endings ;
in W. T. 639. In L. L. L. few incomplete lines ; in W. T. many.
In L. L. L. one Alexandrine ; in W. T. 16. In general terms, then,
we may expect to find, that in Shakspere's development he gradually
dropped the rhymed dialogue, adopted double endings, Alexandrines,
and broken lines ; and this is undoubtedly true. On reference to
the table, however, you will see that a chronology founded on any
of the last three tests would lead to the strangest results, e. g. the
double endings would place Richard III. very late indeed, and John
very early ; the two parts of Henry IV. would be widely separated.
The Alexandrine test would make Measure for Measure the latest of
the comedies ; the test by broken lines would make Lear far the
latest of all the plays ; the rhyme test — and the rhyme test only of
all that I have as yet applied — is of use per se for determining the
chronological arrangement of Shakspere's works. It is, however,
worth while to print the table in extenso, as it will be valuable for
reference for many other purposes, as we shall see in the questions
of the genuineness of disputed plays. In using it, however, we have
another important consideration to allow for. We know from the

8 I. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO SHAKSPERB.

title-pages to the Quartos that Shakspere was in the habit of making
additions to his works, and we have strong reason to believe that in
some instances, viz. in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Romeo and
Juliet, and Hamlet, we are in possession of early sketches of these
plays, or at any rate of the acting versions of these early sketches.
We also find that in Lear, Hamlet, and Richard III., we have two
versions, one of which differs much from the other in quantity; and
in these as well as in Othello, 2 Henry IV., and Troilus and Cressida,
there are many various readings that affect such a table. Now my
table is made from the Globe edition, as being the most convenient
portable one with numbered lines ; but any conclusions drawn from
it will be subject to some discount on account of these variations.
The chronological scheme, then, that I shall propose, is only pro
visional, and to serve as a basis for more accurate investigation of
each play, based on all its editions. Such an investigation I am
making as to Romeo and Juliet, and the results will, I hope, be
given in the edition to be edited for our Society by Mr P. A. Daniel.
We must also consider, when we have Quartos, the relative accuracy
of the printers, and I may refer you to my table of these editions as
useful on this point. The following, then, are the results, as I
interpret them, to be drawn from my metrical table as to the
succession of Shakspere's plays : —

1. The Taming of the Shrew, Henry VI., and Titus Andronicus
are not Shakspere's in the main bulk ; they are all productions of
what I may call the Greene and Marlowe School. I shall not go
into the evidence here, as I shall give it in full in separate papers.

2. Henry VIII. and The Two Noble Kinsmen are partly Fletcher's,
as has been shown by others.

3. Pericles and Timon of Athens are also only partly Shakspere's :
these plays I shall also discuss separately. The remaining plays fall
distinctly into four periods :

I. The rhyming period, including Love's Labour 's Lost, Midsum
mer Nighfs Dream, Comedy of Errors, Romeo and Juliet, and
Richard II.

II. The Comedy and History period, including Two Gentlemen of
Verona, Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, As You like Itt Merry

I. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO SHAKSPERE. 9

Wives of Windsor, Much Ado about Nothing, Richard III., John,
Henri/ IV. , and Henry V.

III. The Tragedy period, including Macbeth, Cymbeline, Hamlet,
Othello, Lear, Troilus and Cressida (which was partly written much
earlier), Measure for Measure, and probably All 's Well that Ends
Well, which is certainly a revision of an earlier play, probably
Love's Labour 's Won.

IV. The Eoman and Final period, including Julius Ccesar, Co-
riolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, The Tempest, and Winter's Tale.

Note. In the first column of the following table there are many
differences from the imperfect form in which it was first issued ; the
reason for this is that 1 was unfortunately prevented, by absence on
other duties, from revising the first proof thoroughly ; and I have
only, since the setting of the table in type, found my paper in
which the proportions of rhyme to blank vers-e, &c., were completely
worked out ; none of the differences however were important.

F. G. FLEAY.

10

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF SHAKSrERE S PLAYS.

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I. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO SHAKSPERE. 11

I give above, in parallel columns, the scheme proposed, and those
of Delius, Malone, Drake,, and Chalmers. I quote these three latter
from Allibone. Before remarking on the scheme, I desire to add
that it is by no means final : I have myself several other tests in
course of application, and I have no doubt other workers in the
same field will find additional ones, now that the subject is
ventilated. As a provisional scheme, however, I place some con
fidence in it, for this reason ; that, although it is based solely on the
metrical table, it in no instance contradicts any external evidence.
It also distributes the work much more equally 'than the other
schemes ; never requiring more than two plays to be written in one
year.

Remarks on the position of certain plays in this list.

First Period. The 5 plays are distinctly marked off as a separate
class by the vast preponderance of rhyming lines. Loves Labour 'a
Lost has more than 1000, Midsummer Night's Dream 850, Romeo and
Juliet 650, Richard II. 530, and Comedy of Errors (though a very
short play) 380, which is equivalent to 600 in a play of ordinary
length. Now, no other of Shakspere's plays reaches to the number
of 200 rhyming lines ; and as the battle between rhymed and un-
rhymed compositions was fiercest at this time, I feel that there is no
doubt that Shakspere joined the advocates of rhyme at first, and
gradually learned to feel the superiority of blank verse ; and I am
much inclined to believe, that in bringing out and editing or
revising Henry VI. (which I conjecture that he did in 1594-5, after
Marlowe's death) he found the evidence of the superiority of blank
verse much strengthened ; at any rate, the difference between these
five plays of the first period, as to amount of rhyme, is too great, in
my opinion, to admit any other play, however inferior, to be ranked
with them. I know how strongly some think that the Twt> Gentle
men of Verona must have preceded Midsummer Night's Dream,
because this latter is so beautiful a ' work/ I do not say a ' play ; '
for I agree with N. Drake and others in the view that the Two Gen
tlemen is superior as an acting piece, however inferior as a poem.
I must, for want of space, refer to Drake's Treatise for a full state
ment of his arguments. For myself, I find it impossible to believe

12 I. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO SHAKSPERE.

that the Two Gentlemen was not written nearly at the same time as
the Merchant of Venice, which is so like it in metrical handling ;
and equally impossible to regard the Midsummer Night's Dream as
a production of any but the earliest period, when fancy was strong,
and the sense of the prose realities of life comparatively weak. Note
also that the comedies in this first period all observe the unity of time,
no action extending to the second day, and that they are all similar
in their nature, turning on the solution, as it were, of an embroilment
produced under circumstances barely or only hypothetically possible ;
which remark applies also to Love's Labour 's Won, if that be, as I
believe, the foundation of AH 's Well that Ends Well. The almost
total absence of Alexandrines in Romeo and Juliet, and their abso
lute absence in the three comedies (the one instance in Love's Labour 's
Lost I think is corrupt), is another very striking difference from all
the other plays. In Richard JL, however, these Alexandrines are
admitted, and this is therefore the play in which this, the first sign
of the Second Period, begins to show itself. In other respects this
play is, to my thinking, far removed from John or Henry IV. It
bears something of the same relation to Marlowe's Edward II. that
the Two Gentlemen of Verona does to the Taming of a Shrew, or
Richard III. to Henry VI. Shakspere in it seems not to move with
the same freedom that he does in his later plays, and the whole
work has an artificial air. Another point that distinctly separates
the earlier from the later historic plays is, the absence of prose :
Richard II. and John have none, Richard III. only one bit; but that
reads like, and I believe is, an addition, or interpolation; and of
these earlier plays, Richard II. is the only one that is absolutely
devoid of Comedy. This also marks its position.

Second Period. The positions I have given to the plays in this
period so nearly coincide with those generally assigned (except as to
the Two Gentlemen of Verona, which has already been noticed), that
no special remarks seem needed. One general characteristic of the
period is the diminution of the number of rhyming lines, which
number about 100 to 200 in this period for a full play. Much Ado
and Merry Wives have a smaller number, but are almost entirely in
prose, being quite exceptional in this respect. Also the number of

I. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO SHAKSPERE. 13

short lines is considerably increased, though not nearly so much as
in the next period. Alexandrines are admitted from 5 to 20 in a
play (but in Richard II. there are 33 ?) ; the number of feminine
endings increases, but not in any regular progression ; and doggerel
lines, stanzas, sonnets, and alternate rhymes (which abound in the
earliest plays) gradually die out ; there are not many in any plays
of this period.

Third Period. In this a few words may be needed on the
position I have assigned to Macbeth. In metre, number of rhymes,
the fewness of Alexandrines, and short lines, &c., it undoubtedly is
earlier than Lear, Othello, or Hamlet; but it will be said the
external evidence points the other way. I venture to think not. I
agree with Clark and Wright that this play has been much altered
since its first composition, and has now many interpolations in it :
in Act 4, Scene III., — the passage on the touching for the evil —
the marks of interpolation are palpable ; 1. 159 follows metrically on
1. 139,

" 'Tis hard to reconcile — See who comes here "

making a perfect line : the Doctor (unknown elsewhere in the play)
is dragged in for the express purpose of introducing the subject ; and
" Comes the king forth, I pray you," 1. 140, is inconsistent with
" Come, go we to the king," 1. 236. The play was therefore written
before this touching for the evil was revived by James I. ; and when
could the allusion to the " twofold balls and treble sceptres " have so
much force, or be so likely to be introduced, as in 1603, just after
the accession of this king ? There . is also a general feeling that
Cymbeline should be later in date than 1604, but the indications of
metre are all to the date I give, unless the stopped-line test be taken
into account. I await the result of the examination of all the plays
by this test, before I give my opinion of its value.

In this Third Period the metre is much freer; prose and verse are
intermingled in the same scene ; tri-syllabic feet abound ; short
lines are very abundant ; double endings are greatly multiplied ;
Alexandrines not composed of two lines of six syllables are intro
duced ; the Alexandrines with regular caesura increase greatly ; the

14 I. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO SHAKSPERE.

number of rhyming lines gradually falls off. The plays are difficult
to test, as to metre, in this period ; partly from the similarity of
style in the great plays, partly from the great variations in the
Quarto and Folio texts. I am, however, applying further tests,
which I hope will be decisive.

Fourth Period. In this the rhymes fall off rapidly, and in the
Comedies actually disappear : the metre becomes more regular and
less impassioned, and the general impression left by these later
works is, that they were produced at greater leisure, and more care
fully polished. The dates given by metrical considerations agree
too nearly with those assigned on external evidence to need com
ment.

And here I think I may fairly point out how singular the coin
cidence of the order here given is with that assigned by the best
English critics on external evidence. This order was first made out
from the rhyme-test only ; and, except in the instances of plays
which are not undoubtedly authentic, I have not changed the
position of one since I first sent this list to Messrs Clark and
Wright in 1870. At that time I had not read any treatise on the
external evidences, and was not even aware that any attempt had
been made to classify the plays into periods. I own this with some
shame ; but claim, at the same time, some additional confidence in
the results of the rhythmical tests. It may seem to some ludicrous
to speak even of the application of mathematics to such a subject ;
but it will be seen from the table that the plays assigned to the
period ending in 1598 by the rhyme test, exactly agree with those
in Meres's list (setting aside questions of genuineness). Now, the
doctrine of chances gives us as the odds against these 10 plays
being selected out of the 30 which are undoubtedly more or less
Shakspere's, more than 20 millions to one : in exact numbers, one
chance only out of 20,030,010 would hit on this exact selection of
plays. To the mind accustomed to the exact sciences, this fact alone
is conclusive as to the immense value of the rhyme test.

I might go into detail concerning the reasons for the position of
each particular play ; but I think it better to await the objections
that may be brought forward at the reading of this paper ; and to

I. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO SHAKSPERE. 15

consider all special matter in an appendix. The table itself is
subjoined. It is only necessary here to add a caution as to the
amount of subjectivity to be expected in such a table as this :
there must be some until the laws of metre are more definitely laid
down than they are at present. I. As to the rhymes, it is sometimes
doubtful if a rhyme is intentional or accidental. In such cases the
rhyme is counted in this table. II. It is sometimes doubtful if one
line of 6 feet, or two lines, one of 5 feet, and one of 1, be in
tended. In the following table the line is, if possible, reckoned as
divided. III. In some instances, lines of four feet in the Globe
Edition can be avoided by re-arranging the lines without altering the
reading : this has been sparingly done in Pericles, and in cases where
the arrangement of the lines is made by modern editors without
authority in the original texts. IV. All Alexandrines proper, with
caesura at the end of the third foot, are counted in the six-measure
lines, and not as two lines of three measures, except where, as in
The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Richard III., lines of six syl
lables are repeated many times together. In the larger tables from
which this one is abridged, all peculiarities are noted for each scene ;
perhaps when our text is settled, it may be worth while to print
such tables in full for each play. The four last lines in the table
are from the imperfect editions in the first Quartos.

With regard to the position of the Taming of the Shrew as
assigned by me, as also indeed for Tlmon, Pericles, and Henry VI. ,
I must deprecate any discussion, and ask for absolute forbearance,
until my special papers on these plays are read. I hope the first-
mentioned of these plays especially will not appear so misplaced as
it must do now, after the paper devoted to it has been studied.

N.B. The columns headed Alternates,, Sonnets, and Doggerel are
included in the totals summed in the column headed Rhymes,
5 measures, which gives the number of all rhyming lines not
shorter than the ordinary blank-verse line.

16

METRICAL TABLE OF SHAKSPERE'S PLAYS.

PLAY.

1 TOTAL OF
LINES.

PROSE.

BLANK.

RHYMES,
5 MEASURES.

RHYMES,
1 SHORT LINES.

i SONGS.

23

pa y,

II

ALTERNATES.

E

1

J
M
•

M

MEASURE.

tEASURES.

[EASURES.

1

l-saansvai

rH

<N

«

•<*•

(O

I. PLAYS OF FIRST (RHYMING) PERIOD.

Love's L. Lost.

2789

1086

579 1028

54

32

9

236

71

194

4

12

13

1

Midsum. N. D.

2251

441

878

731

138

63

29

158

—

5

3

Com. of Errors.

1770

240

1150

380

137

64

—

109

3

8

9

Horn, and Jul.

3002

405

2111

486

—

118

62

28

10

20

16

4?

6

Richard LI.

2644

2107

537

—

—

148

12

— —

11

17

26

22

33?

II. HISTORIES OF SECOND PERIOD.

Richard m.

3599

55? 3374

170

—

570

—

—

—

20

39

13

23

16

King John.

2553

2403

150

—

54

12

1

9

4

4

2

1 Henry IV.

3170

1464

1(522

84 —

60

4

16

17

16

16

13

2 Henry IV.

3437

1860

1417

74' 7

15

203

[Pistol 64 1.]

3

13

7

6

Henry V.

3320

1531

1678

101 2

8

291

[Pist. ,,
157 I.]14

-

2

13

10

4 23

III. COMEDIES OF SECOND PERIOD.

T. Gent, of V.

2060

409

1510

116

15

203

16

18

8

15

32

8

5

Her. of Ven.

2705

673

1896

93

34

9

297

4

—

4

8

16

22

2

14

Twelf. Night. 2684

1741

763

120

. —

60

152

—

— —

8

21

23

5

10

As you Like it. ' 2904
Merry Wives. 3018

1681
2703

925

227

71
69

130

97
19

211
32

10 — | 2
[Pistol 39 1.]

3

10
3

33
3

1

5
3

Much Ado, &c. |2823

2106

643 40

18

16

129

22 — —

2

7

15

4

4

IV. COMEDIES OF THIRD PERIOD.

All's Well. 1 2981 1 1453 1 1234

280

2

12

223

8

14

—

7

31

31

5

14

Meas. for Me. 1 2809 1 1134 1 1574

73

22

6

338

—

—

—

10

29

'66

R

47

V. TRAGEDIES OF THIRD PERIOD.

TroylusandC. 3423

1186

2025

196

—

16

441

—

—

—

10

46

62

13

43

Macbeth. 1 1993

158

1588

118

129

—

399

—

8

28

43

8

18

Cymbeline.

3448

638

2585

107

—

32

726

[84 1.' in vision]

8

15

31

18

42

Hamlet.

3924

1208

2490

81

—

60

508

[86 1. in play]

20

53

55

11

47

Othello.

3324

541

2672

86

—

25

646

—

—

—

19

66

71

13

78

King Lear.

3298 903

2238

74

—

83

567

—

—

—

18

34

116

' 22

50

VI. PLAYS OF FOURTH PERIOD.

Julius Caesar.

2440

16512241

34! —

369

—

_^_

14

31

55

6

16

Coriolanus.

3392

829 2521

42| -

—

708

—

—

—

3

33

76

19

42

Antony and C.

3964

255 2761

42

6

613

—

—

—

14

38

84

31

61

Tempest.

2068

458 1458

2

—

96

476

[54 1. in masq. ]

2

16

47

5

11

Winter's Tale.

2758

844J1825

0

—

57

639

[32 1. in chor.]

8

14

19

13

16

VII. PLAYS IN WHICH SHAKSPERE WAS NOT SOLE AUTHOR.

Henry VIH.

2754 67 ?

2613

16

12

1195

[46 1. in Prol.

2

19

18

3

32

Two Noble K.
Pericles.

2734
2386

179
418

2468
1436

54

225

89

33

1079
120

& Epilogue].
[222 1. Gower].

9

17

19
49

46
59

17

26

5

18

Timon of A.

2358

596

1560

184

18

—

257

— — —

15

28

54

30

37

VIII. FIRST SKETCHES IN EARLY QUARTOS.

Rom. and Jul.

2066

261

1451

354

—

92

28 | - | -

7

26

30

21

92

Hamlet.

2068

509

146i

54

43

—

209

[36 1. in play]

13

45

76

37

30

Henry V.

1675

898

77^

I 30

—

104

- 1 -

—

1

25

35

31

15

Merry Wives.

139J

1207

14*

} 40

38 [fairies] IS

- 1-

—

—

1

—

5

i

IX. DOUBTFUL PLAYS.

T. of Shrew.

26711 516

1971 169

15

— 26C

—

49 4

18

22

23

5

Titus Andron.

2525

43

2338 144

— i 154

mmt

4

8

9

9

12

1 Henry VI.

2693

2379 314

— 14C

—

5

5

4

7

12

2 Henry VI.

3032

448

2562 122

— 25J

—

—

—

8

25

15

21

12

3 Henry VI.

2904

2749 15S

—

34(

—

—

13

11

14

11

7

Contention.

1952

381

1571 j 44

—

5"

—

14

16

32

44

True Tragedy

210]

2035 ; 6t

•^

- K*

j — _

—

14

21

29

33 34

17

DISCUSSION ON MR FLEAY'S FIRST PAPER.

THE discussion was opend by the Director, who said : " The
first point which must strike every one is, that Mr Fleay's table of
Rymes, &c., does not enable us to decide at once whether it justifies
the order he puts the plays in, or not. This point we cannot settle
till we have percentages, or proportions, such as I have given as to
the stopt lines, in the Society's Prospectus. Mr Fleay has as yet
given us only the materials for calculating these proportions ; and, so
far as I have been able to work out two or three instances, his ma
terials do not justify his results. We must therefore wait till he
sends us his Table of Proportions, and the figures he founds it on,
and then we can judge of this point. But granting that his order of
the Plays is rightly drawn from his Table, any one who knows the
Plays can discuss whether that order is right or not. Of only two or
three Plays do I feel competent to speak. The Two Gentlemen of
Verona I am astonisht to see placed so late. Though this Play has
more dramatic development, and more finish of style — as in the
song to Sylvia — than in Love's Labour's Lost l and the Comedy of
Errors, yet it is so weak a one, that I cannot at present believe that
it is later than Richard II., if even it is later than Midsummer
Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet, which I doubt. The Two
Gentlemen contains that fatal blot — to an Englishman's mind, at
least — of making Valentine give up his Sylvia to that traitor Proteus
on just a momentary repentance. It is true that I know of a great
Emendator who says this is a mistake of the copier's, and must be
put right ; but the texts are firm ; and Shakspere shows that he
meant it, for he makes Proteus's lover, Julia, faint directly she hears
it. Thus the nail is clincht. Perhaps Shakspere meant to exemplify
the impulsiveness of the Italian character ; but I cannot believe that
later on in the growth of his mind, in 1596, when he was 32, he
would have put this incident so, or made Sylvia send Proteus her
picture, even if these blemishes were in the original story from which
he got his plot. On the other hand, it is possible that Shakspere
here intended to show us the impulsiveness and shallowness of
the Italian character. The New Exegesis of Shakspere may say
something on the point, as Mr Hales will on the Keltic character
when he reads his Paper on ' Lear as a type of the Kelt.' The late
date given to The Taming of the SJirew also surprises me. However,
as Mr Fleay deprecates discussion of this until his Paper on the
subject is read at our meeting on the 4th Friday in April, I have no

1 I except the 1596-7 part.
TRANSACTIONS. 2

18 DISCUSSION, MARCH 13, ON THE ORDER OF SHAKSPERE'S PLATS.

doubt he will then be able to convince us he is right. Mr Spedding
has shown that Shakspere's part of Henry VIII. is of the same, or
nearly the same, date as the Tempest and Winter's Tale.1 Mr Craik
has given reasons for Julius Ccesar being earlier than the other
Roman Plays, and Mr Spedding and Prof. Dowden havedndepend-
ently fixt its place near Hamlet. Mr Fleay's early date for Cymle-
line also surprises me. Its style is surely that of one of Shakspere's
latest plays, as the stopt-line test shows. It has more lines with
weak endings in by, if, as, &c., than any other play, I believe. In
general handling it is more close to The Winter's Tale than any other
play. Like that, it treats of the father's breaking of family ties by
his own injustice,2 and then re-joining them, and points (in my belief)
to Shakspere's renewed family life at Stratford after he had left
London, and to the contrast he must have felt between country and
court. If indeed Cymbeline be, as Mr Fleay says, but as I can't
believe, of the year 1604, the fact is remarkable, because that is the
year of the revised Hamlet ; and side by side with that man-charac
ter that most draws men to it, you would have in the same year Shak
spere's most beautiful woman-creation, Imogen."

Mr Richard Simpson said : " 1. With reference to the statement
on p. 11, that Shakspere joined the advocates of rhyme at first, it
must be remembered that the earliest undoubted notice of him (by
Greene, in 1592) tells us that he ' supposes he is as well able to
bombast out a blank verse as the best.' 2. At p. 12 Mr Fleay says all
the comedies of the first period observe the unity of time. All's
Well that Ends Well, a revival of one of these comedies, extends over
a month at least. 3. With regard to the Director's objection to
Valentine's resignation of his love to Proteus, it must be remembered
that the theory of Shakspere's Sonnets is the glorification of the
friendship between men over their love of women —

< Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all.'

It might have been a mere unsubstantial theory, not meant to be
realized, but there is no doubt of its being the notion which under
lies the Platonism of the Sonnets, and therefore may have been
deliberately adopted by the mature Shakspere for the crisis of a
drama."

Dr Abbott said, the Society were bound (in gratitude to Mr
Fleay for the new track he had marked out for students of Shak
spere, which showed the result of a lifelong study given to the sub
ject) to offer such suggestion as they could with a view to utilize the
tabular statements of Mr Fleay. It was evident that those Tables
could not be used till they had been turned into lists, of so many
rhymes, &c., in a thousand lines, or proportions of one to three, four, or

1 Mr Fleay now allows and confirms this. See Appendix, p. 23*, and 24*.
8 Compare too Catharine's case in Henry VIII. of this time.

DISCUSSION, MARCH 13, ON THE ORDER OF SHAKSPERE'S PLAYS. 19

five, as the case might require. In regard to rhymed lines, the subject
of each play, and its internal details, would have to be considered :
for instance, it was the custom to have rhymes where the actor went
off at the end of a scene, so that a play with many exits might have
a proportionately large number of rhymes, without being very early.
He added that, where a play was written or begun early, and revised
or completed late, the rhyme-test might not be trustworthy. Lastly,
he called attention to the fact that the Early Sketches of Plays
which ought to contain more rhymes, in proportion, than the same
plays, when complete, did not appear to contain more, but rather
less.

Mr Alexander J. Ellis (President of the Philological Society)
followed. Although outsiders might imagine that Mr Fleay's nu
merical treatment of Shakspere was a poetical desecration, he foresaw
that it gave a means, independent of mere subjective feeling, for
separating the feet of clay from the heart of gold, so that we should
not be idolizing as Shakspere's what he never wrote. Having had
himself to work through Shakspere for rhymes and puns, he knew the
great labour which Mr Fleay's results represented, and the indebted
ness which all Shaksperian students must feel to one who had under
taken it. Still, much remained to be done. The work would have
to be verified. The actual rhymes relied upon must be each seen
and passed, for what looks like rhyme to modern eyes was not
always rhyme to Shakspere's ears, and conversely. The rhymes that
were accidental or incidental, and those which were purposed as part
of a rhyming system, would have to be separately considered. Evi
dently only the latter would be a test. It would be necessary,
therefore, really to specify every rhyme in the margin of the plays,
and then carefully consider them in reference also to the subject-
matter. How the proportions should be finally calculated was an
other difficulty to settle. As to metre, Mr Fleay, by his imitations,
had shown great command of the subject. But the appreciation of
metrical intention was very personal, and a different intonation would
often bring out rhythm where none was at first felt. Hence, except
in such mechanical matters as " the stopped-line," or " the double-
endings," or " Alexandrines," or " three-syllable measures," there was
much difficulty in counting. And even here too much weight must
not be laid upon occasional use of any form, which the exigencies of
writing, or the inspiration of the moment, would engender, independ
ently of habit. It was only the habit that had to be appreciated.
In the Alexandrines great diversity of opinion prevailed, and he
(Mr Ellis) had in his own notes found it necessary to distinguish
between " well-marked " and u lightly-marked " Alexandrines ; mean
ing by the latter, verses with two superfluous syllables. The reso
lution of syllables, as, pu-is-sance, le-o-pard, cre-a-ture, &c., and the
difference of accent, as, ad-ver-tise ; the syllabic r, as, Hen-r-y, fi-re ;
and I, as, crad-l-es, &c., threw also much difficulty into the way of

UO DISCUSSION, MARCH 13, ON THE ORDER OP SHAKSPERE's PLAYS.

merely statistical inquiry. We have, probably, much to learn as to
the metre of Shakspere and his contemporaries, even after we know
the outward form of the words they used; because until we can
clothe them in sound we cannot properly appreciate their rhythmical
value. We have not such a mere mechanical counting of accents
and syllables, as in classical verse of quantities and syllables. The
metre is entirely different, transitional from Chaucer's time to — well,
say, Dryden's. — Mr Ellis also dwelt upon the necessity of consulting
the Quartos as well as the Folios, and not basing statistical inquiries
upon any one critical edition — or, at least, separating the points
relating to doubtful lines. He considered that we owed a great deal,
indeed, to Mr Fleay ; but more for initiating than for completing the
work. He hoped that it would stimulate individual members to
individual study. If several members would each make a complete
study of a single different play, in order to check Mr Fleay's results,
much might be done. We were very far, as yet, from being in a
position to give more than a tentative list of the order of the plays.
But it was important that such lists should be made, for each test-
separately, and then that the various orders should be compared.
It was not, however, correct to make a subjective order, and then to
test the tests by seeing whether they gave the same.

Dr B. Nicholson, after a few comments on the order of the Tioo
Gentlemen of Verona and Romeo and Juliet, suggested that it
deserved inquiry whether, in the early stage of dramatic blank
verse, rhyme was as frequently used as at a later date, and whether
an increased use, or rather re-introduction, of rhyme, did not belong
to a date subsequent to the commencement of Shakspere's dramatic
career. So far as his memory went, in the plays of Marlow and
Greene, there was not much rhyme. He thought too it would be
worth inquiring how far the prevalence of rhyme was influenced by
the subject of a play and its mode of treatment. For instance,
notwithstanding its large amount of rhyme, he could not believe
that Midsummer 's Niglifs Dream should be placed so early as it
was: but would place it — at least, the revised part of it — -after
King John.

With a few words from Mr JE. Oswald the First Discussion closed. A
Second Discussion on the First Paper tvas held on March 27 — after the
close of the Discussion on the Second Paper, — and is reported on page
21, ^.

21

SECOND DISCUSSION ON MR FLEAY'S FIRST PAPER.
March 27, 1874.

MR J. W. Hales : — I wish, Mr Director, first of all to say how
very grateful I feel, as everybody else should do, to Mr Fleay for
having prepared these metrical tables ; and I think it will be a
great thing if this Society can prepare in the course of time a
series of test-lists which we may place side by side. But it seems
to me impossible to take this single test of metre as being altogether
omnipotent and decisive with regard to the order of the plays, and
still less to take what is in fact only one branch of this test of
metre, the rhyming branch, as quite decisive and final. The fact
is, there are many other tests which, although one cannot express
them exactly by figures, are certainly of a value that cannot be
overlooked. I venture to think, with regard to this criticism of
the Two Gentlemen of Verona, quoted on page 17, that it is 'boyish,'
— that there is a great deal in it, and that it is a statement which
can be distinctly supported and justified.

To turn at once to Mr Fleay's list of the Order of Shakspere's
Plays, there are many points in it from which I should distinctly
dissent. With regard to one or two of the plays, there is outside
evidence to which everybody must bow, that corrects it. With
regard to Troilus and Cressida, the external evidence which assigns
it to the year 1609 is of no slight force. As is well known, it is
declared in the preface to the first of the two editions of that year to
be a play which has never been ' clapper-clawed with the palms of
the vulgar.' If Mr Fleay is prepared to hold that Shakspere had
Troilus and Cressida by him finished for no less than seven years,
then, of course, he may be right as to the date of 1602 ; but why
should one agree with him 1 Then with regard to As You Like It,
it is fairly certain that play is entered on the Stationer's Registers in
the year 1600. With regard to the date of Macbeth, the test of
style (which is a very definite test ; not one of those tests that can
be put down as simply un-analyzable and vague) surely points to a
comparatively late date. With regard to Mr Fleay's argument, on
page 13, as to the date of this play, I cannot myself think it at all
decisive. We are told that, because Macbeth contains an inter
polated, or inserted allusion to the King's touching for the evil,
therefore the Play was written before this touching for the evil was
revived by James I. This is distinctly a case of non sequitur, or
at least not a case of scqiiUur, because it is quite possible that this

22 DISC. MAR. 27. MR HALES ON THE ORDER OF SHAKSPERfi's FLAYS.

addition may have been specially made for some court perform
ance ; just as, in all probability, the passage in praise of James
at the end of Henry VIII. was inserted in the midst of Elizabeth's
eulogy, for some special court performance. For the rest, there is an
error, on page 12, in the statement that the comedies of the first
period all observe the unity of time. The Midsummer Night's
Dream does not observe it. The mistake probably has been com
mitted through a misapprehension of the name of the play. The
time of the action of the play has here nothing to do with its name,
as also is the case in the Winter's Tale. The real time of The
Midsummer Night's Dream is May. It begins on the 29th of
April and ends on May Day, as may be learnt from the scene
where Theseus finds the lovers in the wood. On the other hand,
The Tempest does not violate the unity of time ; and this is one
of the latest plays. I should also like you to notice that this em
broilment, of which something is made, as occurring in the Comedy
of Errors, occurs also in Twelfth Night, which is certainly of the
second period.

With regard to the Two Gentlemen of Verona,, I think it can be
made extremely probable from several considerations that that play
precedes Romeo and Juliet ; and I think the arguments drawn from
the meagreness of characterisation and artistic power generally, and
the comparative feebleness of that moral sense and insight which
mark Shakspere's later plays, are very important arguments as
to the date of the work. Mr Fleay pairs it off with the Merchant
of Venice ; and with regard to the Merchant of Venice it must be
allowed, I think, as various Editors have held, that the play is of
various dates, that probably part of the Merchant of Venice is
quite early, especially the part of Launcelot, whom the Launce of
the Two Gentlemen of Verona so much resembles. But that the
Two Gentlemen of Verona is far earlier than the Merchant of
Venice as a whole, seems fairly demonstrable. In the first place,
there is a very notorious geographical blunder in the Two Gentlemen
of Verona — a blunder strikingly contrasting with the topographical
accuracy of the Merchant of Venice, — an accuracy so minute as to
have suggested the theory that Shakspere had visited Venice. You
will remember in the Two Gentlemen of Verona that Valentine goes
from Verona to Milan by sea. It is not enough to refer in palliation
of this to the geographical blunder in the Winter's Tale ; for that is
a play singularly abounding in liberties and licenses — as where Giulio
Romano is made contemporary with the Oracles of Delphos. These
liberties were, I believe, quite deliberate, and are in fact compre
hended in and covered by the very name of the play. We will now
refer to a striking parallel that is to be found between certain
passages in the Merchant, .of Venice and the Two Gentlemen of
Verona. It so happens^-that in both these plays a list of lovers
is given by one person to be criticised by another. In the Two

DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR HALES ON THE TWO GENT. OF VERONA. 23

Gentlemen of Verona (on page 22 of the Globe edition, Act i. Sc. 2),
you will find that Julia and Lucetta are talking together, and Julia
proposes that Lucetta her maid should show her mind touching
her (Julia's) various lovers. If you look at this critique, you will
find how extremely slight it is, how wanting in knowledge and
information. If you turn to the corresponding passage in the Mer
chant of Venice (on page 183 in the Globe edition, Act i. Sc. 2),
you will see what an immense advance in the amount of information
there is since the other play was written ; you will find that Shak-
spere's knowledge of the various nationalities of Europe has so con
siderably increased as to enable him to hit off with a noticeable
fidelity some leading characteristics. He describes Italian types,
the French type, the English, the Scotch, and the German. Surely
it is impossible to ignore the difference in the mere matter of inform
ation which these two passages show. Take it along with the other
point I have referred to, and you have two strong facts for placing
the Two Gentlemen long before the Merchant. Of the marked
dramatic inferiority of the former — an inferiority that means an
interval of years — I have not now time to speak ; for all I propose
now is to urge that the Two Gentlemen is anterior to Romeo and
Juliet.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona contains germs, so to speak, which
Shakspere developed in Romeo and Juliet, a play with which it is
thus brought into an interesting contact. Valentine in the earlier
part of this play is a mocker of love, like Troilus in the opening
of Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida. I shall not have time to
refer at length to the particular passages ; but you will find that
Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet is a full development of this mocker,
of which Shakspere just gives a meagre suggestion in the Two
Gentlemen of Verona. And I must just say, in passing, that in
Love's Labour's Lost you have that type of mocker brought out with
much greater force of emphasis and power than in the Two Gentlemen
of Verona. To return ; you will find that there are incidents com
mon to the two plays ; thus the design and method by which
Valentine is to marry Silvia are precisely reproduced in the other
play, only more fully and completely in Romeo and Juliet. At the
time that this marriage is to be celebrated, at that very moment a
sentence of banishment falls upon Valentine, and he is exiled just
as Romeo is. There is indeed a very distinct verbal resemblance in
reference to this common catastrophe ; but in Romeo and Juliet the
mere hints of the earlier play are expanded and matured. Look at
Act iii. Sc. 1 of the Two Gentlemen of Verona (p. 32 of the Globe
ed.), at what Valentine says about his banishment, and compare it,
on the other hand, with what Juliet says about Eomeo's banishment
when she becomes aware of it. Valentine says —

" And why not death rather than living torment 1
To die is to be banished from myself,

24 DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR HALES ON THE TWO GENT. OF VEROXA.

And Sylvia is myself ; banished from her
Is self from self : a deadly banishment ! "

If you compare the way in which Juliet dwells upon this same
bitter word " banishment," you will see how this mere suggestion
and germ of the earlier play is ripened in the later play. Juliet
says — Act iii. Sc. 2 : —

" Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,
That murdered me : I would forget it fain,
But 0, it presses to my memory
Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds.
' Tybalt is dead and Romeo — banished.'
That * banished,' that one word * banished,'
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts."

There are several passages in the play in which Julia will remind
the reader of Juliet, with just the difference, that in the Play of
Romeo and Juliet Shakspere has become a great master of the art of
expressing passion, whereas in the Two Gentlemen of Verona he is
simply learning his art.

To turn to other points in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, it seems
to me perpetually unripe, and full of crudities, which can be as
distinctly noticed and named as any metrical features. Take, for
instance, Speed and Launce in this play. I do not think there
is any other play of Shakspere's where he brings together two
specimens of such absolutely kindred and similar humour as in
this play. Certainly there is no admittedly mature play in which
he does so. In all his at all advanced plays he distinguishes
humour. You have a higher and lower wit, or at least different
shades of wit. In this case it is difficult indeed to distinguish
between these two persons at all. Again, in such a scene as that
in which Proteus makes love to Silvia in Valentine's absence,
you have, I think, a fair specimen of the artistic crudeness just
mentioned [p. 36, Globe Edition, Act iv. Sc. 2]. There you have
Proteus trying to take the place of Valentine after Valentine's
banishment. As he prefers his suit, Silvia reminds him of that
other duty to which he was bound. He says, " I grant, sweet
Silvia, that I did love a lady ; but she is dead." To which Silvia
makes answer :

" Say that she be ; yet Valentine thy friend
Survives \ to whom thyself art witness
I am betrothed : and art thou not ashamed
To wrong him with thy importunacy 1 "

It seems simply grotesque that Proteus should reply, " I likewise
hear that Valentine is dead ; " and so throughout the scene ; and the
scene is not alone in this respect.

I must not, I am afraid, take up more time, but I should like to

DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR HALES ON THE TWO GENT. OF VERONA. 25

say this about this play : that, if there is any drama of Shakspere's
in which you can imagine him reproducing his own position in
leaving Stratford and stepping out into the world, so to speak, you
have it in the Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Turn to the first act, in the very first words you will see that this
question of movement is present with him ; whether it is well to live
at home, or to go and look at the world beyond. Valentine is all
for change. There is a passage to the same effect still more interest
ing in the speech of Antonio to Panthino, in the 3rd scene of the
first act — a passage which has been used in trying to settle the date
of the play.

" He wondered that your lordship
Would suffer him to spend his youth at home
While other men of slender reputation
Put forth their sons to seek preferment out,
Some to the wars to try their fortune there,
Some to discover islands far away,
Some to the studious universities :
For any or for all these exercises,
He said that Proteus your son was meet,
And did request me to importune you
To let him spend his time no more at home,
Which would be great impeachment to his age
In having no more travel in his youth."

A minor point is this name of Proteus. The name Proteus,
you will remember, exactly describes the character of him who
bears it. This is a sort of art, which Shakspere does not as a rule
make use of, at least in the case of his leading persons. The only
exception, perhaps, is Ophelia in Hamlet, according to the somewhat
paradoxical suggestion which Mr Ruskin has made.

I could add very much to the special argument which I have
tried to suggest, which I say is as palpable and tangible as any
which can be expressed in figures. The only difficulty which stands
then in the way of an early date for this play is the rhyming test as
it stands at present before us. Now I doubt whether we are yet in
a position to fully understand what Shakspere's use of rhyme was.
This, I think, is quite certain, that at a quite late period Shakspere
used rhyme for a distinct artistic purpose. There is a passage very
important in this regard in the beginning of King Lear, where the
rhyming is clearly not an echo of an old custom ; for I think one must
dismiss that opinion that rhyme lingers on by mere stage tradition in
Shakspere's plays. I believe that, just as in Hamlet he uses blank
verse of a particular kind to give a contrast in the play, so in another
part of Hamlet and in other plays he uses rhyme. The passage referred
to in King Lear is in the opening scene where passion is overcoming
ft

26 DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR HALES ON SHAKSPERE'S USE OF RYME.

the King, and Kent is expostulating with him, and it is necessary to
mitigate the heat of the scene.

" Fare thee well, king : sith thus thou wilt appear,
Freedom lives hence and banishment is here.
(To Cordelia.) The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid,
That justly think'st, and hast most rightly said."

See also France's rhymed address to Cordelia. The rhyme in
these cases, I suggest, has a distinct artistic purpose. Is it altogether
impossible that Shakspere's first dramatic experiment may have
been in blank verse? I do not see anything valid to forbid us
to believe that, coming up to the stage, where Marlow was already
established with his blank verse, Shakspere may have made his first
essay in a blank-verse play. Certainly, this is unmistakable with
regard to the play of the Two Gentlemen, that Shakspere's hand is
tied and cramped in it in a merely metrical point of view. You
have in Love's Labour's Lost passages of a superior facility and power
as regards blank verse than in the Two Gentlemen of Verona. I do not
mean those passages of marked metrical melody, which are probably
part of the additions made to the earlier version of the play ; for the
edition of 1598 is described as newly corrected and augmented ; but
passages that certainly belong to the original piece. Take Act ii.
Sc. 1, and observe the greater freedom of movement. One can
scarcely speak of comparing the blank verse of the Two Gentlemen
with that of Romeo and Juliet or with that of The Merchant of
Venice. One must say, Contrast.

Mr Furnivall said : — Before giving my own view of the true
use and value of Mr Fleay's * Metrical Tests,' I wish to read a Letter
on the subject in general, and on a new test, the Pause-Test, in par
ticular, from the scholar, who, of all men I have talkt to, seems to
me to combine most happily, criticism of the spirit and form of poetry,
namely, Mr James Spedding, M.A., the Editor of Bacon's Works,
Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who four and thirty
years ago led the way, in which we, thus late, are following him, by
his able convincing Paper on the shares of Shakspere and Fletcher
in Henry VIII, a Paper which, by his kind leave, will be reprinted
in the Appendix to our Transactions for 1874 : —

ME SPEDDING'S LETTER ON THE PAUSE-TEST.

BEFORE I draw conclusions from the application of Mr Fleay's
tests, I must wait to hear the result of your inquiry as to what you
call the " stopt lines." But if you go no further than to count the
number of lines in which a pause in the sense or the delivery coin
cides with the concluding sy liable, _ I shall not be satisfied with it.

DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR SPEDDING ON THE PAUSE-TEST. 27

The effect of the metre upon the ear depends mainly upon the dis
tribution of the pausing places with relation to the normal structure
of the line. " The English heroic verse," says Mr Alexander Ellis,
" is usually stated to consist of ten syllables : it is better divided into
five groups, each of which theoretically consists of two syllables,
of which the second only is accented. The theoretical English
verse is therefore 01, 01, 01, 01, 01 ; but this normal form is very
seldom found. Practically many of the groups are allowed to con
sist of three syllables, two of them being unaccented ; but in these
cases the syllable immediately preceding is usually very strongly
accented. The number of syllables may therefore be greater than
ten, while the accents may be, and most generally are, less than five.
It is necessary for an English verse of this description that there
should be an accent at the end of the third and fifth group, or at the
end of the second and fourth ; and if either of these requisites are
complied with, other accents may be distributed almost at pleasure.1
The last group may also have one or two unaccented syllables after
its last accent. Much of the beauty of a verse arises from the proper
distribution of the natural grouping of words and the pauses between
them, and also the distribution of the groups of accents among the
groups of words" " The mode," he adds presently (after analysing
the metre of the first sixteen lines of Paradise Lost), " in which these
necessary conditions are diversified by the introduction of other and
unexpected accents, or by the omission of accents, is very remarkable,
and shows the art and rhythmical feeling of the poet."2

Now, if we are to ascertain by mechanical and numerical tests
the differences between Shakspere's metre and other men's, or between
his own earlier and later work, we must find some means of repre
senting in tables his method of distributing these groups, accents,
and pauses ; and the progressive changes in it. These things, though
easily perceived by the ear, are not easily described ; and very diffi
cult to represent to the eye. And yet any comparison which leaves

1 I do not think this is quite correct : for if so, you might invert the place
of the accent in both of the two first groups, provided you kept it in its right
place in the third and the last : 1 0, 10, 01, 10, 01, would he an admissible
line, which I don't think it is. The true rule, I suspect, is, that you may in
vert the place of the accent — substitute a trochee for an iambus — in any group
except the last, provided you don't do it in two together — though 01, 10, 01,
01, 01 ("among daughters of men the fairest found") can hardly be read
without throwing as strong an accent upon the last syllable of " daughters " as
upon the first ; making it, in fact, 01. 1 1, 01, 01, 01.

2 Essentials of Phonetics, p. 77.

28 DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR SPEDDINQ ON THE PAUSE-TEST.

them out of the account, leaves out, in my opinion, the most essential
part of the matter. For my ear assures me that there was a con
tinual change going on in the metrical structure of Shakspere's
verse, — all in the way of substituting unexpected for expected effects,
so far as it could be done without losing the sense of the normal law
of the metre, to which all the variations had reference, — and that it
is by the stages in this change that his compositions may be most
certainly dated. But then to translate what the ear hears into what
the eye can see, is difficult'; on account of the great number, com
plication, and subtilty of the observations which the ear makes, and
which the eye would find it very hard to follow. The notation used
by Mr Ellis — which is simply a comma to mark the end of a group,
a hyphen to mark the end of a word, a figure ( 1 ) to describe an ac
cented syllable, ( ^ ) to describe a swfr-accented syllable, and an ( 0 ) to
describe an wrcaccented syllable — does, in fact, represent all the par
ticulars that are wanted. But it is like a new alphabet in which
we have not learned to read ; and I should have very little hope of
making the changes of metrical effect visible by presenting them to
the eye in that form. I have sometimes thought, however, that
they might be represented by curved lines, which, having a sort of
physiognomy of their own, might be more easily associated with the
corresponding effects on the ear. If, for instance, we took (-) for an
accented syllable, (u) for an unaccented, (~) for a subaccented, a
comma for a shorter pause, and a full stop for a longer ; and then
took a passage of eight or ten lines, and set down the successive
accents, subaccents, no-accents, and pauses longer and shorter, each
in its place (without the words) ; I can fancy that the distribution
of the marks would make a kind of picture to the eye, distinguish
able from a different distribution answering to another passage of
different metrical construction. But when the thing in question is
sound, I prefer for my own part to consult my ears; and I shall leave
it to somebody else to invent an instrument for measuring it which
can be better depended upon.

In the mean time I am satisfied that this test (which you may
call for shortness the " pause-test ") is of more value than any of the
other mechanical tests ; indeed, it is worth all of them put together.
And for this reason. It is not a matter of choice or accident, but
grows out of the mental condition of the man, and depends upon it.
It is not the result of an arrangement which can be prescribed or
agreed upon, but follows his own taste. Whether a play shall be

DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR SPEDDINQ ON THE PAUSE-TEST. 29

written in rhymed or blank verse, whether songs shall be introduced,
whether it shall be relieved by occasional scenes in prose or occa
sional dialogues in doggerel, whether the metre shall be regular
throughout or whether lines of more or fewer measures shall be ad
mitted by way of variety — all these are questions which may be
asked and answered ; and the work may be done according to the
order. But no manager, in ordering a play for his company, could
give directions as to the distribution of pauses and accents. It is
true, no doubt, that Shakspere found blank verse a more suitable
measure for dramatic dialogue than rhyme, and as he advanced, dis
used rhyme more and more. But it is easy to suppose a case in
which he would have been quite ready to write a play in rhyme,
even in his latest period, if it had been wanted. Songs he would
introduce or avoid, accordingly as the company had or had not a
popular singer. If he found that the actors did not like a scene to
end without a couplet or two by way of colophon, he might supply
them with the couplets, whether he thought it an improvement or
not. Then, again, the subject would have something to say to the
form. The humour of a particular character would run more na
turally into rhyme than into blank, or into prose than into verse, or
into song than either. I see that the songs abound most in As You
Like It ; next in the Tempest ; then in Lear : after these, at a con
siderable interval, in Midsummer Night, Twelfth Night, Hamlet,
and Winter's Tale. Then after another interval, in Lovds Labour's
Lost, Cymbeline, Othello, Merry Wives, and Much Ado. Last, in
2 Henry IV, Two Gentlemen of Verona, All's Well, Merchant of
Venice, Henry V, Antony and Cleopatra, and Measure for Measure ;
while in the nine remaining there are none at all. Gan any one
suppose that this had anything to do with the date of composition,
except in so far as the company may have been better furnished with
singers at one time than another ?

But though I think Shakspere could at any time of his life have
written a play either with or without songs in it, either in prose or
verse, and either in blank or rhyme, — and might have been induced
to do it for the good of the theatre, — I do not believe that he could
have been induced, after he was 40, to write either rhyme or blank,
resembling in metrical structure and rhythmical effect, that which he
used to write before he was 25, or even 30. The regular cadence and
monotonous sweetness had grown tiresome to his ear ; his imagin
ation and intellect had become impatient of the luxuriance of beau-

30 DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR SPEDDING ON THE PAUSE-TEST.

tiful words and superfluous imagery. It had become a necessity to
him to go to the heart of the matter by a directer path, and to pro
duce his effects of beauty and sweetness in another way — a way of
his own. Compare the description of a similar object in three dif
ferent plays, belonging to dates considerably distant from each other :
the face of a beautiful woman just dead ; there being nothing in the
character of the several speakers to explain the difference.

1. Romeo and Juliet, second edition (1599): not in the first
edition : therefore presumably written between 1597 and 1599 : — •

Her blood is settled and her joints are stiff.
Life and these lips have long been separated.
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the fairest flower of all the field.

2. Antony and Cleopatra (1608, according to Mr Fleay) : —

If they had swallowed poison, 'twould appear
By external swelling : but she looks like sleep,
As she would catch another Anthony
In her strong toil of grace.

3. Cymbeline (date disputed, but I say one of the latest of
Sliakspere's plays) : —

How found you him 1

Stark, as you see,

Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber,
Not as deaths dart being laughed at. His right cheek
Eeposing on a cushion.

The difference in the treatment in these three cases represents
the progress of a great change in manner and taste : a change which
could not be put on or off, like the fashion, but was part of the man.
Yet none of Mr Fleay's tests seem to touch it. The " double-end
ing " test would place the passage in Antony and Cleopatra before
that in Romeo and Juliet ; and that in Cymbeline at the same time
with it.' And the other tests say nothing.

Look, again, at the structure of the verse a few lines further
on : —

Thou shall not lack

The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor
The azured harebell like thy veins, no, nor

DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR FURNIVALL ON THE RYME-TEST. 31

The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander
Outsweetened not thy breath.

Here, by the " double-ending " test, the second and third lines
would count as indications of early composition. Whereas I doubt
whether you will find a single case in any of Shakspere's undoubt
edly early plays of a line of the same structure. Where you find a
line of ten syllables ending with a word of one syllable, — that word
not admitting either of emphasis or of pause, but belonging by con
struction to the next line and forming part of its first word-group, —
you have a metrical effect of which Shakspere grew fonder as he
grew older; frequent in his latest period, — up to the end of his
middle period, so far as I can remember, unknown. To discover and
count the cases of this metrical construction will be a great part
of the office of the " pause-test." Its other applications I should
expect to separate the Two Gentlemen of Verona further from the
Merchant of Venice ; to date Julius Ccesar a good deal earlier than
it stands on Mr Fleay's list ; and to distinguish, in Pericles, in
Troylus and Cressida, in Love's Labour Lost, and in the Taming of
the Shrew, the earlier scenes from the later — earlier and later, I
mean, in date of composition ; for whether or not these Plays were
all written by Shakspere, there can be little doubt that some parts
were written earlier than others. Whether the Test will be fine
enough to distinguish Shakspere's earliest work from that of the
men whom he began by imitating, remains to be seen.

J. SPEDDING.

I believe that this Letter will convince you of the soundness of its
arguments. A metrical test can only be valuable according to the
degree in which it detects a change of expression that results from a
change of mind. And that metrical test must be most valuable,
which can detect the changes of form springing from the most im
portant changes of mind or taste.1 Moreover, as the most important

1 It has yet to be shown that the ryme-test does this more than the stopt-
line test, or the pause-test. The cause of the disuse of the end-stopt-line and
ryme was, no doubt, the effort to escape from the restraints that both imposed
on freedom and truth of expression. In ryme a man can say only what like-
sounding words '11 let him, not what he naturally would say. How often
Chaucer pads for ryme's sake ! -How often have other poets evidently altered
or modified their thoughts for it! And with a large majority of end-stopt-
lines, you can't have flowing narrative or talk. On the other hand, with too
many unstopt lines you can't have — as Bathurst well says — great Tragedy ;
and the prevalence of such lines in Shakspere's late plays is one of the reasons
why you want a Fourth Period of his works.

32

DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR FLEAY'S TABLE ANALYSED.

changes of mind and taste — for instance, the abandonment of fanci
ful for imaginative analogies, the substitution of deep thought for
shallower, and full knowledge of life for half-knowledge — cannot be
detected by metrical tests, the results of these tests must be subject
to, must be controlld and checkt by, the results of higher criticism.
If any metrical test, or any dozen of them, makes, for instance,
Cymbeline come much earlier in the order of Shakspere's Plays than
where the higher criticism puts it (if I may assume, for the present,
that it does so), close to The Winter's Tale, then the metrical tests
must be held, in this case, to have faild, and must give way to the
higher criticism. In no sense can metrical tests be calld * scientific.'
They get their value from the coincidence of their results with those
of aesthetic criticism and external data. They are merely empirical ;
and though they yield the right result on twenty-five applications,
there is no reason why they should do so on the twenty-sixth.
Still, their value is very great, if they are but kept in their place.
Ductores, non domini nostri, as Lord Houghton prints over his books
in their case. Metrical tests do give a trial-order to Shakspere's
Plays ; they do show trial-differences between his work and other
men's ; they prepare causes for the judge ; in close cases of aesthetic
differences, their results would carry the judge's decision ; they can
confirm, and give definite and easily understandable grounds for a
judgment; but they can never be sole judges themselves. To
suppose that any one empirical metrical test, like that of Eyme, can
settle the stage of development of a myriad-sided mind like Shak
spere's is, to me, a notion never to be entertaind. If, after close
study, the results of any one such test are found to coincide all
through with the results of aesthetic criticism, and external evidence,
I shall hold it a happy accident, not a scientific necessity.

Much as I esteem Mr Fleay's work, I cannot accept his conclusion
as to the infallibility of the ryme-test. I do not even know the
grounds of that conclusion, have not seen the figures that establish
it. Prima facie one would suppose that the worth of the test would
be shown by finding the proportion between the whole number of
ryme-lines and blank-verse ones in the different plays. Let us try
this by columns 4 and 3 of Mr Fleay's first Table : —

Name of Plays.

1. Love's Labour's Lost

2. Midsr. N.'s Dream

3. Comedy of Errors

4. Merry Wives

5. Richard II.

6. Romeo & Juliet

7. * All's Well

Rymes. Blank,

1028 into 597

731 „ 878

380 „ 1150

69 „ 227

537 „ 2107

513 ,, 2084

= 4-06

280

1234= 4

•58 Meres, 1598

1-20 Meres

3-02 Meres

3-29

3-92 Meres
Meres

(Mer. (Love's
{ L'sWonne)

1 [See note 1, p. 33.]

DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR FURN1VALL ON THE RYME-TEST. 33

Name of Plays.

Rymes.

Blank

8.

1 Twelfth Night

120

into 763

=

6-35

9.

1 Troilus and Cressida

196

„ 2025

=

10-33

10.

Two Gent, of Verona

116

„ 1510

—

13-01

Meres

11.

As You Like It

71

„ 925

=

13-02

12.

2 Macbeth

118

„ 1588

=

13-45

13.

King John

150

„ 2403

=

16-02

Meres

14.

Much Ado

40

„ 643

=

16-07

15.

Henry V.

101

„ 1678

sss

16-623

16.

2 Henry IV.

74

» 41?

5=

19-28)

M

17.

1 Henry IV.

84

„ 1622

=

19-30)

18.

4EichardIII.

170

„ 3374

=

19-84

Meres

19.

Merchant of Venice

93

„ 1896

=3

20-38

Meres

20.

Measure for Measure

73

„ 1574

21-56

21.

Cymbeline

107

„ 2585

=

24-15

22.

Lear

74

„ 2238

3S

30.24

23.

Hamlet

81

„ 2490

30-74

24.

Othello

86

„ 2672

31-06

25.

Pericles, Sh.'s part1

14

„ 827

=

59-07

26.

Coriolanus

42

„ 2521

=

60-02

27.

Antony and Cleopatra

42

„ 2761

S3

65-73

28.

Julius Caesar

34

„ 2241

: •

65-90

29.

Henry VIII, Sh.'s part5 6

„ 1146

191

30.

Two Noble Kinsmen6

2

„ 1124

=

562

31.

Tempest

2

„ 1458

=

729

32.

Winter's Tale

0

„ 1825

: infinity.

If then this be, as it apparently is, the right way of using Mr
Fleay's Table, the order of the Plays resulting from it is so flagrantly
wrong — in putting The Merry Wives next The Comedy of Errors ;
All's Well, Twelfth Night, and Troilus and Cressida before The Two
Gentlemen of Verona ; Macbeth next but one to it, between As You
Like It and King John; Richard III after boch Henry V anr'
Henry IV; Cymbeline before Hamlet; and Julius Cwsar afte
the other Roman Plays, — that the ryme-test must be held to have

1 Play written at two different Periods, says Mr Fleay. Of Troilus and
Cressida, Mr Fleay pointed out the early parts in The Academy of March 14,
1874, p. 288-9. Love's Labour 's Lost, Midsummer Night's Dream, and
Romeo and Juliet must also have been partly rewritten by Shakspere after
their first production.

Altered somewhat by Middleton, probably, say Clark and Wright.

If the Chorus sonnet of 14 lines is omitted the figures are changed into
87 to 1678, or 19-28.

Probably altered from an earlier play (of ? Marlowe's). — Fleay.

See Mr Fleay's Table, Appendix, p. 23*.

Shakspere's part. See Mr Fleay's confirmation of Mr Hickson's Paper,
Appendix, p. 61*.

TRANSACTIONS. 3

34 DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR FURNIVALL ON THE RYME-TEST.

faild completely as a sole guide. It is flatly contradicted by Meres,
by known dates, by the sense of every reader of Sliakspere.

Surely, then, before we can be askt to accept the Ryme-test as
an infallible or scientific one, we are entitled to require more
explanation and more facts about it. For instance ; in col. 4 of
Mr Fleay's table, why are only five-measure rymes included? If
in Merry Wives I find two lines ryining (as I suppose), —

Miss Page. Feare not you that : Go, get vs properties
And tricking for our Fayries. [? = Fay-r-ies.]

Booth, p. 56, col. 2 ; Globe, p. 62, IV. iv. 77-8.

why is not the short second line to be counted1? If so, why are not
all other short-line rymes in other plays to be counted too, specially
if they are part of the action of the play 1 Again, as to Prologues
and Epilogues ; these are, surely, part of a Play, and their lines
must be counted as such. What matters it whether Richard III
himself explains his motives, and what he means to be, or a Pro
logue2 tells us what Henry V is, and means to do1? If Pandarus's
last speech, or Puck's, is, as it is, an Epilogue, though not calld so,
why is it to be differencd from the Epilogue3 that is calld so in
Henry V, and the other plays that have one ? Whether it is couplet-
ryme, sonnet, or prose, it must be treated as part of the ryme, or
prose, of its play.

Next, as to the mode of getting the proportion of ryme to blank
verse in each of Shakspere's plays. On the table above, Mr Fleay
says ' this way of using my Table is not the right way. Only Re
verse-scenes of each Play are to be considerd, and not the whole
Play.' (' Why 1 ' one may well ask.) ' You must take my fresh Table
of Proportions, founded on the relative numbers of 5-rneasure
ryme-lines to blank-verse ones in verse-scenes only.'

Unluckily Mr Fleay has lost the Table of Numbers, on which he
founded this fresh Table, so that we are unable to find out what his
figures are, and how he defines the term " verse-scenes." But let us
try the fresh Table by the Merry Wives, as that has the fewest lines
to be counted. It has four scenes which contain a fair proportion
of verse, iii. 4 (48 blank 5-measures (no ryme), and 3 of less, to 63
of prose) ; iv. 4 (66 blank 5-measures (4 of ryme 4), and 5 of less, to

1 Compare : Qu. About, about :

Search Windsor Castle (Elues) within, and out.

p. 51, col. 1, Booth ; V. v. 59-60.

2 Ryme Prologues are in 2 Hen. 1 V (calld Induction), Hen, F(five, one
to every Act), Hen. VIII (by Fletcher), Troilus, Romeo and Juliet (two, to
Acts i. ii.), Two Noble Kinsmen (by Fletcher), Pericles (many), by Rowley?.

3 Ryme Epilogues are in TJte Tempest, All's Well, Hen. V, Hen. VIII
(by Fletcher), Pericles (by Rowley).

Prose Epilogues are in As You Like It, 2 Hen. IV.

4 Properties, fairies 1. 78-9 (if ryme : see above) ; have her, crave her, 1.
89-90.

DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR FURNIVALL ON THE RYME-TEST. 35

19 of prose) ; iv. 6 (50 blank 5-measures (2 of ryme1), and 1 of less,
to 4 prose) ; v. 5 (84 blank 5-measures, and 2 of less (and 10 of a
4-measure song), to 163 prose). In these 248 lines of 5-measure
verse (less the song) there are, — by my counting, at least, — 55 of
ryme, giving the proportion of 1 to 4*5. But if that figure is right,
the ryme-test is wrong, unless those critics are right (and my most
able friend Professor Seeley is among their number) who hold The
Merry Wives to be a comparatively early play, written before Henry
IV. At any rate the proportion 1 to 4'5 does not tally with Mr
Fleay's 1 to 22. How does he get this1? Perhaps by leaving out
the rymes of v. 5, the sham-fairy scene. But why? again we may ask.
Let us then take only iii. 4, iv. 4 and iv. 6 : we have 6 lines of ryme
to 164 of blank, and this gives the proportion of 1 to 27*33, putting
The Merry Wives, according to Mr Fleay's list, after Cymbelme,
which all the best critics (and I say this, though I hold with them),
internal evidence, and the stopt-line and weak-ending tests, show to
be one of the latest of Shakspere's plays, close to The Winter's Tale.
Well then, again the Ryme-test is wrong. So let us take only two
scenes, iii. 4 and iv. 4 : 6 lines of ryme to 116 of verse, or 1 to
19*33. At last then we get a result which, though not Mr Fleay's,
is better than his, as it brings The Merry Wives level with Henry
IV and Henry F, 1 in 1 9, and allows us to get the play into its
right place, between Henry IV and Henry V. But who can be
satisfied with the process by which this result is arrived at ? Who
can prove that iv. 4, with nearly one third prose (19 lines to 66) is a
verse-scene, while iii. 4 (63 prose to 48 verse) is not1? Who can
prove that properties, fairies, was meant as a ryme, when the best
judge in England (Mr A. J. Ellis) says that here it was not? And
if it was not, the place of the play is all in a muddle again. It has
been often said that statistics can be made to prove anything. I
think they can be fairly made to give The Merry Wives three
different places at least, in the order of Shakspere's Plays. And on
the whole I contend that this one instance — whose fewness of verse-
lines tempted my dislike to counting and sums to take it up — justifies
us in saying, with all gratitude and respect to Mr Fleay, that until
he can find and print the figures for his fresh Table, and give us
the reasons for which he moves each of the plays he does move
from its place in his original Table, as turnd into one of proportion
above, we are bound to suspend our judgment as to the results
and value of the ryme-test. We cannot grant plenary inspiration to
it unless every point in its favour is proved by the clearest evidence.
Dr B. Nicholson said, "In considering the value of the ryme-
test as a determiner of the succession of Shakspere's Plays, play after
play, it may be as well to set before ourselves, at the outset, the
assumptions on which the theory must be based, and inquire how

1 Chooser, from her, 1. 11-12.

36 DISC. MAR. 27. DR NICHOLSON ON SHAKSPERE's USE OP RYME.

far they are capable of proof or liable to objection. It is said
(p. 11), 'that the battle between rymed and unrymed composition
was fiercest at this [Shakspere's earliest] time, and I feel no doubt
that Shakspere joined the advocates of ryme at first, and gradually
learned to feel the superiority of blank verse.' But in 1586 Tam-
burlaine had practically conquered ryme, that is, ryming plays.
Nashe and Greene, in 1589, speak against the fact, but are obliged
to accept it. Greene, once the advocate, because a craftsman of the
former order of things, when he wrote in blank verse employed
ryme but sparingly. Still, however, it was used, and by all ; it is
found even in Tamburlaine itself, and in all Marlow's other plays,
as in the plays of other dramatists ; but it is used only as a sub
ordinate, and only for various more or less defined offices ; these
offices varying somewhat with the idiosyncrasy of each master. As
I read the history, there was then no battle when Shakspere began
to write, but on the contrary the new system had been established ;
and as he wrote in blank verse, I do not see how it can be said that
he first joined the advocates of ryme. As Mr R. Simpson has justly
remarked, Shakspere is first spoken of as a writer of blank verse.
Besides, if we accept the hypothesis that he commenced as an advo
cate of ryme, and that his most ryming play is his earliest, and the
next most ryming play his second, we must accept two improbabili
ties. First, That Shakspere, a young man and young writer, was
uninfluenced by Tamburlaine and its sequels, which, played on his
own stage, exercised so undoubted an influence over the public and
playwrights of the time. Secondly, That he was a greater advocate
for, and a greater user of, ryme than those who unwillingly gave in
to blank verse. A young man, desirous of success, and influenced
always in life by that which was around him, Shakspere accepted,
it appears to me, the style in vogue, just as even in his later age he
followed by nature and principle, not his own tastes merely but
those of the day, both in matter and form.

" Looking, then, to the style in vogue in Shakspere's early days,
we must hold it an unproved assertion, that the amount of ryme
was at its highest immediately after its overthrow, and descended in
an unvarying curve. And looking to Shakspere's own style, it is
neither proved nor shown by probabilities that he commenced with
his maximum of ryme. Secondly, It is not only unproved, but is,
as seems to me, an assumption requiring the strongest proof, that he
immediately, as it were, repented, and then repented or cooled down
degree by degree, and this through several years. I, for my part,
cannot accept without the strongest proof a psychology which shows
a mental change in arithmetical progression with the years, and
varying from no other causes. I would not at all deny that Shakspere's
taste, and the taste of the public, for ryme in plays died away ; and
therefore that the plays after and at the close of that period or
periods, might well be distinguished by this test from those of an
earlier date ; but as yet there appear to be insufficient reasons for,

DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. DR NICHOLSON ON THE RYME-TEST. 37

and very strong objections against, accepting it as fixing the par
ticular succession of the plays, either as a whole or taken in their
classes. Perhaps, in the Histories and Tragedies, where we have
similar themes to be similarly treated, this ryme-test may be found
to coincide greatly with their chronological order, though this is not
proved, and depends on the assumption, among others, that Shak-
spere commenced with a maximum of ryme. But to class all his non-
Histories and non-Tragedies, as Comedies, is not to make them all of
one kind. In reality, they differ greatly in character and treatment.
And here what has been said, and what I think may be proved, as
to the more or less definite purposes according to which ryme
was used, comes in strongly as an argument against mere chrono
logical variation. I have already [see the Discussion on Mr
Fleay's Second Paper] remarked on the difference between the
Comedy of The Faithful Shepherdess and Fletcher's other Come
dies, a difference due to The Shepherdess being a pastoral Comedy.
Midsummer Night's Dream, so far as an intentionally incongruous
dream can be characterized, approached it as an Arcadian fairy
land pastoral, or, if one likes it better, masque. At all events,
The Dream is quite different in character and treatment from The
Comedy of Errors, or The Two Gentlemen of Verona ; hence, I be
lieve, a difference in the amount of ryme.

"There is also, as it appears to me, another consideration left
out of account. Shakspere at different times, wrote Venus and
Adonis, Lucrece, and his Sonnets ; the latter requiring much thought,
both as to matter and versification. There is no evidence in these of
any distaste for ryme ; and it appears to me the more natural sup
position that when composing these, he would, if only through habit,
ryme more than usual in his plays.

" Looking, therefore, to what appears to me the unproved assump
tions on which the theory of ryme as a determiner of the exact suc
cession of the Comedies stands, and to the probabilities against that
theory, I endeavoured to test the test. For this I chose Ben
Jonson's plays ; and the choice seems to me fair, nay, most fair.
Jonson used ryme, and, like Shakspere, though at a later period, gave
it up ; he prided himself on his correctness and carefulness ; every
line of his plays was written by himself; he took care that they
should be correctly printed, even to the punctuation ; and he gave
us the year of each first representation. I do not tabulate my
results at present, but, including or excluding the Tragedies, the
results do not accord with the known chronology." l

1 If it be said that these Comedies include some that are part prose and
some wholly verse, I answer, first, that according to Meres, Jonson was
celebrated in 1598 as a tragedian ; therefore, as seen in Sejanvs, accustomed
to ryme, — but Out of His Humour (1599) has a greater proportion of rymes
than In His Humour (1598). Secondly, that an admixture of prose cannot
of itself alter the proportions, but does prove difference of treatment ; and

38

POSTSCRIPT TO PAPER I.

Table of ratios of rhyme-lines in rhyme-scenes to blank-verse lines
in each play : — (First approximation.)

COMEDIES. HISTORIES AND TRAGEDIES.

First period.

Love's Labour's Lost .6

Mid. Night's Dream 1 Richard II. 4

Comedy of Errors 3 Romeo and Juliet 4*3

( 1st Pt of 2 Gent, of Ver. 7 1st Plot of Troy. & Cress. 8*4

( 1st Plot of Twelfth Night 7'5 2nd do. do. 13'6

Second period.

Richard III. *

Merchant of Venice 1G John 16

f Much Ado, &c. 21 M Henry IV. 19

( Merry Wives of Windsor 22 j 2 Henry IV. 19

As You Like It 19 ^ Henry V. 19

Compln. of 12th Night. Prose.
Com. of Tain, of the Shrew*

Third period.

J All's Well, &c. (rewrit.)
I Measure for Measure

22 Julius Caesar
22 /-Hamlet
1 Othello
4 L-^ar
Macbeth?
^Cymbeline

•*

about 30
„ 30
„ 30

*

j>

„ 30

32
23

»

( Part of Pericles
(Part of Timon

if, therefore, such plays require to be considered apar1, t'u's in itself proves
that for which I contend.

POSTSCRIPT TO PAPER I. 39

COMEDIES. HISTORIES AND TRAGEDIES.

Fourth period,

{Compln. of Troyl. and Ores. 54 -5
Coriolanus 60

Julius Caesar? *

Antony and Cleopatra 66

Fifth period.

( Tempest 729 .' Part of Two K Kinsmen 281

I Winter's Tale infinity (Part of Henry VIII. infinity

The above table is corrected up to the date of my pres?,nt in
vestigations (May 17, 1874) from one published in The Academy by
me (March 28, 1874).

My reasons for all alterations will be given in my special paper
on each play. They are based chiefly on more scientific application
of the rhyme-test, aided by the weak-ending test, the middle-syllable
test, and above all by the ccusura-test, which is next in importance to
the rhyme-test : and has helpt me much in making a different division
of the plays in some instances. Cymbeline, however, was misplaced
through another cause, a numerical blunder ; which I have now cor
rected. As these investigations extend, this table will require further
correction.

Much Ado and Merry Wives are apparently out of order. There
is so much prose in them that two rhymes would be a sufficient
difference to justify their present position : this number is too small
to overbalance other considerations which will be given in due time.

F. G. FLEAY.

40

ON THE

QUARTO EDITIONS OF SHAKSPERE'S WORKS.

BY THE REV. F. G. FLEAY, M.A.
A Supplement to Paper I, showing the dates of the first and later Quartos!)

A LIST of these has long been wanted, drawn up in such a way as to
afford ready reference to students in search of such information as
can be obtained from the title pages of the various volumes. These
have often been reprinted ; but such a table as is annexed will give
readier access to the inquirer, and also, from the manner of its
arrangement, supply information that would otherwise require many
separate documents.

Explanation of the Table. In the extreme left-hand and right-
hand columns are placed the dates of publication, and in the
horizontal lines between these the names of the works published in
those years, as well as the names of the printers and publishers ; and
the symbols (Qi, Q2, &c.) by which the Cambridge editors refer to
each edition. The works are divided into four groups, partly with a
view to avoid the straggling arrangement which would be necessary
were no such division adopted ; partly with regard to certain peculi
arities in each group, which will presently be pointed out in the
notes. The first of these groups contains poems only, viz. Venus
and Adonis, Lucrece, and the Passionate Pilgrim. The second
group contains Richard II., Richard III., 1st and 2nd Henry IV.}
Much Ado about Nothing, and Troylus and Cressida. The third
group contains three plays, originally published in imperfect editions,
Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and The Merry Wives of Windsor ; two

ON THE QUARTO EDITIONS OF SHAKSPERE's WORKS. 41

plays that differ much from the Folios, viz. Lear and Othello ; two
plays, of which two editions each were published originally in the
same year, viz. Midsummer Night's Dream and the Merchajit of
Venice ; and Shakspere's probably earliest play, Love's Labour Lost.
In the fourth group are placed plays more or less spurious, viz. The
Contention of the House of York and Lancaster, The True Tragedy
of Richard Duke of York, Henry V. (as first issued), Pericles,
and Titus Andronicus. The abbreviations used for the titles of these
plays are in common use, and it is hoped will require no further
explanation. One or two other signs may however require it, e. g.
*Q4 from Q3,' in the second column for each group, means 'the
fourth edition published in quarto, which edition is considered by
the Cambridge editors to have been printed from the third ; J ' *Q
means ' an edition without Shakspere's name on the title page ; ' fQ
means ' the edition from which, in the opinion of the Cambridge
editors, the Folio was printed ; ' J. Rfoberts] means that J. R is
printed on the title page, and that J. R. is ascertained from the
entries in the Stationers' books or other reliable evidence to mean J.
Roberts. There is nothing else in the table that requires explanation.
Nor is it necessary to point out in detail its use for showing at a
glance the successive editions of each work, the dates at which the
copyright of each changed hands, the number of works published in
each year, the date of the maximum number of publications (1598 —
1600), the sudden appearance of Shakspere's name on all his
authentic works in 1598 (except the edition of Romeo and Juliet in
1609), &c. But in the notes will be found some additional par
ticulars which are of interest

1 The Yen. & Ad. *Q4 is the Isham copy found at Lamport by Mr Charles
Edmonds, and edited by him. It was not discovered till after the Cambridge
Shakspere was published, and consequently all our notation will have to be
altered in a future edition. The 1630 Yen. and Ad. (now in Bodleian) with
title page, was formerly in the Ashmole Museum, but I have not seen it.
According to Edmonds it was 'printed by J. H., and are to be sold by Francis
Coules.' He adds that it is different from our Qio, which is in the Bodleian,
without title, but catalogued with date 1630.— W. ALOIS WEIGHT.

Mr Wright has consequently altered the notation in the table to that to be
adopted in the next edition of the Cambridge Shakspere. — F. G. F.

F. G. FLEAY'S TABULAE VIEW

OF THE

QUARTO EDITIONS

OF

SHAKSPEEE'S WOEKS

FROM 1593 TO 1630 A.D.

EXPLANATION.

A star, *, prefixt to Q (for ' Quarto ') means, an edition without Shakspere's name
on the title page ; a dagger, f, the edition from which, in the opinion of the Cam
bridge editors, the Folio was printed.

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF QUARTOS FROM 1630 TO 1652, WHICH
COULD NOT CONVENIENTLY BE PUT IN THE TABLE.

GROUP.

NAME OF PLAY.

EDITION.

PRINTER.

PUBLISHER.

III. (

1631 Love's Labour Lost

Q2 from Fi

W. S.

J. Smethwicke

i

? Hamlet

Q5 from Q4

do.

do.

1631 Taming of Shrew

Qi from Fi

do.

do.

II. (

1632 1 Henry IV.

Q7 from Q6

J. Norton

W. Sheares

1634 Richard H

6j5 from F2

do.

(

„ Richard HI.

Q8 from Gj7

do.

\

IV.

1635 Pericles

tQ6

T. Cotes

I.

1636 Venus and Adonis

*Qi3

J. H.

F. Coules

III. (

1637 Hamlet

Q6 from Qs

R. Young

J. Smethwicke

„ Romeo and Juliet

Q5 from Q4

do.

do.

(

,, Merchant of Venice

Q3 from Q2

M. P.

L. Heyes

II.

1639 1 Henry IV.

Q8 from Q;

J. Norton

H. Perry

III.

1652 Merchant of Venice

Q4 from Q3

W. Leake

44

GKOUP I. POEMS.

GROUP II. GENUINE EDITIONS

:

VI

a

Name of
Work.

EDITION.

PRINTER.

PUBLISHER

Name of
Play.

EDITION.

PRINTER.

PDBLISHE]

159

Ven. & Ad

*Quarto i

R. Field

see Note

159

do.

*Q2 from Qi

do.

do.

»

Lucrece

•Qi

do.

J. Harrison

159

'59

Ven. & Ad

*Q3 from Q2

do.

do.

159

Richard II.

*Quarto i

V. Simmes

A. Wise

M

Richard m

*Qi

do.

do.

'59

Lucrece

*Q2 from Qi

P. Sfhort]

do.

1 Henry IV

*Qi

P. Sfhort]

do.

»

Richard LT.

Q2 from Qi

V. Simmes

do.

»>

Richard HI.

Q2 from Qi

T. Creede

do.

»599
»>

Pass. Pilg.
Ven. & Ad.

Qi

*Q4 from Q3

forW. Jaggard

W. Leake
do.

1 Henry IV.

Q2 from Qi

S. S.

do.

1600
»>

Ven. & Ad.
Lucrece

»Q5 from Q4
*Q3 from Q2

J. Hfarrison]
do.

J. Harrison
do.

2 Henry IV.

Qi

V. Simmes

A. Wise ai
W. Asple;

•'

Much Ado

tQi

do.

do.

1602

Ven. & Ad.

*Q6*Q7fr.Q5

W. Leake

Richard III

Q3 from Q2

T. Creede

A. Wise

1603

1604

1605

1 Henry IV.

Q3 from Q2

V. Simmes

M. Law.

1607

Lucrece

*Q4 from Q3

N. 0.

J. Harrison

tichard HI

Q4 from Q3

T. Creede

do.

1608

Henry IV.

Q4 from Q3

do.

H

lichard LT.

Q3 from Q2

W. W[aterson]

do.

1609

Sonnets

G. Eld.

. Wright a

W. Asplej

•>

1611

r.&Cr.(bis)

Qi

do.

R. Bonian a
H. Whalle,

1612

Pass. Pilg.

Q2

W. Jaggard

ichard LTI.

Q5 from Q4

T. Creede

M.Law

1613

Henry IV.

tQs from Q4

W. W[aterson]

do.

1615
1616

Lucnece

Qs

T. S.

R. Jackson

lichard II.

tQ4 from Q3

do.

1617

Ven. & Ad.

*Q8

W. B[arret]

1619

x

1620

do.

*Q9

J. P[arker]

1622

Richard m.

Q6 from Qs

T. Purfoot

do.

1624

Lucrece

Q6 from Qs

J. B[enson]

R. Jackson

Henry IV.

Q6 from Q5

do.

do.

1627 Yen. & Ad.

*Qio

J. Wreittoun

1629

ichard III.

Q7 from Q6

J. Norton

do.

16301 do.

*Qn?

do.

do.

*Ql2

J. H.

F. Coules.

GROUP III. MIXED EDITIONS. GROUP IV. SPURIOUS EDITIONS. 45

me of
Play.

EDITION.

PRINTER.

PUBLISHER.

Play0

EDITION.

PRINTER.

PUBLISHER.

Date of
Publication.

? Tit. And.

not extant

J. Danter

1593

1st Cont.

*Quarto i

T. Creede

T. Millington

1594

True Trag.

•Qi

P. S[hort]

do.

1595

1596

m. & Jul.

*Qi imperf.

J. Danter

1597

esLab.L.

tQi

W. W[aterson]

C. Burbie

1598

n

n. & Jul.

*Q2

T. Creede

do.

1599

»

;s. N. D.

tQ2

J. Roberts

1st Cont.

*Q2 from Qi

V. Simmes

do.

1600

do.

Qi

T. Fisher

True Trag.

*Q2 from Qi

W. Wfaterson]

do.

„

. of Yen.

tQ2

J. Roberts

L. Heyes

Henry V.

*Qi imperf.

T. Creede

T. Millington
and T. Busbie

„

do.

Qi

do.

Tit. And.

*Qi

J. Rfoberts]

E. White

M

•y Wives

Qi imperf.

T. C[reede]

A. Johnson.

Henry V.

*Q2 from Qi

T. Creede

T. Pavier

1602

amlet

Qi

N. L[ing] and
J. Trundell

1603

do.
do.

Q2

Q3 from Q2

J. Rfoberts]
do.

N. L[ing]
do.

1604
1605

Lear

QiQ2

N. Butter

Henry V.

*Q3 from Q2

T. P[avier]

1607
1608

.. fc Jul.

t*Q3 from Q2

J. Smethwicke

Pericles

QiQ2

H. Gosson

1609

do.

Q4 from Q3

do.

M

unlet

Q4 from Q3

do.

do.

Q3 from Q2

S. S.

i6n

Tit. And.

t*Q2 from Qi

E. White

„

1612

1613

1615

1616

1617

T Wives

Q2 from Qi

A. Johnson

Whole Cont.
and Pericles

Q3 from Q2
Q4 from Q3

T, P[avier]

1619

1620

hello

Qi

N. 0.

T. Walkley

1622

1624

1627

U>.
'ej r Wives

Q3 from Fi

A. M.
T. H.

R. Hawkins
R. Meighen

Pericles

Q$ (incorrect)

J. Nforton]

R. B[irJe]

1629
1630

M

NOTES ON THE TABLE.

GROUP I. The edition of Venus and Adonis, 1593, was to be sold
at the White Greyhound, St Paul's Churchyard, where we find, from
title page of Lucrece, Qi, that in 1594 J. Harrison was carrying on
his business; in 1599, however, W. Leake is in possession of the
Greyhound, and from this date J. Harrison's books have no address.
In 1602 (cf. Venus and Adonis, Q5), W. Leake had given up the
Greyhound, and had taken a new shop with the sign of the Holy
Ghost (or did he change his sign only ?).

W. Jaggard, the printer of the Passionate Pilgrim, was one of
the proprietors of the 1st Folio.

The entries in the Stationers' books give some further informa
tion. On 18 April, 1593, the Venus and Adonis was entered by K.
Field, and was not assigned to J. Harrison till 25 June, 1594, which
assignment is also entered : the dates of the other entries are by W.
Leake, 25 June, 1596; W. Barret, 16 February, 1616; and J.
Parker, 8 March, 1619.

GROUP II. M. Law evidently became possessor of A. Wise's
copyright about 1594.

W. Aspley, at one time in connexion with A. YVise, was one of
the proprietors of the 1st Folio.

GROUP III. Arthur Johnson's Merry Wives of Windsor is the
imperfect copy.

Othello and Lear differ much from the Folios, and do not come
from the same source as it does.

J. Eoberts, the printer of the Merchant of Venice and Mid
summer Night's Dream, seems to have been given to piracy and
invasion of copyright.

J. Smethwicke was one of the proprietors of the 1st Folio.
From the entries in the Stationers' books we can trace some of
the copyrights. On 18 January, 1601-2, the Merry Wives of
Windsor was transferred from T. Busbie to A. Johnson. This T.
Busbie was partner with T. Millington in the spurious copy of
Henry V., and it is probable that the Merry Wives, Qi, was sur
reptitious. It had, however, Shakspere's name on the title page, and

ON THE QUARTO EDITIONS OF SHAKSPERE'S PLAYS. 47

has remains of an earlier sketch from his hand ; it should perhaps be
placed in the fourth group. On 7 February, 1602-3, Troylus and
Cressida was entered by Mr Roberts. On 22 January, 1606-7,
Nich. Ling entered, with consent of Mr Busbie, Romeo and Juliet,
Love's Labour 's Lost, and The Taming of a Shreiv (viz. the old play
entered by P. Short in 1594); he did not print the two former,
though he did the latter; and accordingly, on 19 November, 1607,
we find John Smethwicke enters Hamlet (the imperfect sketch), The
Taming of a Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, and Love's Labour 's Lost, all
of which had belonged to Ling. Smethwicke also took Ling's house
of business, under (the dial of) St Dunstan's, Fleet Street.

The Lear, published by IS". Butter, was entered on 26 November,
1607, for K Butter and T. Busbie. We have seen that Busbie had
to do with the spurious Merry Wives ; and the printing of the Lear
is not like that of a genuine copy, though it has much matter not in
the Folios.

In 1619 Lawrence Heyes entered The Merchant of Venice, but
did not print it till 1637.

GROUP IV. On 19th April, 1602, Millington's copyrights were
sold to Pavier, and among them a Titus Andronicus, which the Cam
bridge editors think to be the one entered by J. Danter in 1593. It
cannot be the one published by White, as he issued editions in 1600
and in 1611; i.e. both before and after the transaction between
Millington and Pavier.

All the publications in this 4th group are clearly surreptitious.

From the Stationers' books we learn that the same E. White
mentioned above entered the spurious King Leir, afterwards pub
lished by J. Wright in 1605. The date of entry is 14th May, 1594.

There is an interesting entry in 1626, when E. Brewster and R.
Birde acquired J. Pavier's right in " Shakespeare's plays or any of
them." Sir John Oldcastle, Titus and Andronicus, and Hamblet,
are mentioned. And on 8th November, 1630, is entered the assign
ment to Richard Coates, by R. Birde, of Henry V., Sir John Old-
castle, Titus and Andronicus, York and Lancaster, Agincourt, Hamb-
let, Pericles, and The Yorkshire Tragedy. Evidently Pavier was a
wholesale dealer in spurious issues.

48

OX THE QUAETO EDITIONS OF SHAKSPERE*S PLAYS.

I add the addresses of some publishers and printers, mentioned
in the above table.
I. E. Field,

Francis Coules,
J. Harrison,
W. Leake.

R. Jackson,
J. Benson,
L. Heyes,
II. A. Wise,

M. La\v,

J. Wright,
R. Bonian and
H. Whalley,

V. Simmes,

T. Creede,
Th. Purfoot,

J. Norton,
III. C. Burbie,
T. Heyes,
T. Walkley,
R. Hawkins,
T. Fisher,
N. Ling,
J. Smethwicke,

N. Butter,

W. Leake (1652),

B. Meighen,

Anchor, Blackfriars, near Ludgate.
In the Old Bailey without Newgate.
White Greyhound, St Paul's.

1. Greyhound, St Paul's.

2. Holy Ghost, St Paul's.
Conduit, Fleet St.

St Dunstan's.

On Fleet Bridge.

Angel, St Paul's.

Fox, St Paul's, near St Augustine's

gate.
Christ Church gate.

! Spread Eagle, St Paul's, over against
Great North door.

(White Swan, near Barnard Castle
[ Adling St.

( Catharine Wheel, near Old Swan,
| Thames St.

1. Lucretia, St Paul's.

2. Within New Rents, Newgate.

3. Opposite St Sepulchre's, &c.
Queen's Arms.

Near the Exchange.

Green Dragon, St Paul's.

Eagle and Child, Britain's Burse.

Chancery Lane, near Serjeant's Inn.

White Hart, Fleet St.

Under St Dunstan's, Fleet St.

do. (under the dial).

Pied Bull, St Paul's, near St Austin's

Crown, Fleet St., between the two

Temple Gates.

(Middle Temple Gate and St Dun-
stan's Churchyard, Fleet Street.

ON THE QUARTO EDITION'S OF SHAKSPERE S PLAYS.

49

IT. T. Millinston, Under St Peter's Church, Cornwall.

Carter Lane, next Powle's Head.
Cat and Parrot, Cornhill, near Ex
change.

Gun, near Little North door, St Paul's.
Flower de Luce and Crown, St Paul's.
Sun, Paternoster Row.
Bible, Cheapside.
In order finally to point out the importance of ready reference to
such a table as the above, I subjoin a list of the results which it
manifestly leads to as to the work needed at the present time in way
of reprinting these old texts.

I. We want texts printed in parallel columns of

T. Millington,

do. with T. Busbie,

T. Pavier,

E. White,
A. Johnson,
H. Gosson,
R. Bird,

Romeo and Juliet Q2

Hamlet Qa

Merry Wives of Windsor F i

2 Henry YI. Fi

3 Henry VI. Fi
Henry V. Fi

and the imperfect sketches
(with collations of other
editions)

These are needed to give a basis to determine Shakspere's manner of
work, if the early sketches are from his hand (as I believe the first
three are), and if not, to disprove the genuineness of the sketch plays.

II. We want texts in parallel columns of
Richard III. Qi

2 Henry IV.
Troylus and Cressida
Lear

QT
Qi
Qi

Othello Qi and Q,2

and Fi (with collations).

Hamlet Qi

to ascertain the relations of the Folio text to that of the previous
editions.

III. We want
columns of

texts of the two earliest Quartos in parallel

Midsummer Night's Dream,
Merchant of Venice,

TRANSACTIONS.

50 OX THE QUARTO EDITIONS OF SHAKSPERE's PLAYS.

to ascertain which edition should have the preference for a revised
text.

IV. Of

Much Ado about Nothing,

Love's Labour 's Lost,
Richard II.,
1 Henry IV.,

we want single- text reprints of Qi, as being preferable to Fi,
which was printed from the Quartos in these plays. Pericles, Qi,
and Two Noble Kinsmen, Qi, would also be desirable reprints. It is
clearly useless to reprint the Folio for plays where it is merely copied
from the Quartos.

It should be noticed that of the eight plays which the pro
prietors of the Folio printed from the Quartos, three, viz. Love's
Labour 's Lost, Romeo and Juliet, and Much Ado about Nothing, had
become their property ; so that (setting Titus Andronicus aside as
spurious) they had only to get permission to print four ; viz. Richard
If., 1 Henri/ IV., Midsummer Night1 s Dream, and Merchant of
Venice ; and even of these four we have no positive evidence that
they did not buy up three ; as there are no reprints after 1623 for
the previous proprietors of the Quartos : (except Merchant of Venice,
1637?)

As I have spoken above of reprints needed in parallel columns,
I may here mention as a cognate matter the need of reprints of the
passages from North's Plutarch, Holinshed's Clironicle, &c., parallel
to revised texts of the Historical and Roman plays founded on
them ; and of reprints of plots of the old plays of The Taming of a
Shrew, Promos and Cassandra, The troublesome raigne of King
John, &c., parallel with the plots of the plays founded on them.

I am also strongly of opinion that revised texts of the early
sketches of Romeo and 'Juliet, Hamlet, The Merry Wives of Windsor,
The Contention, and the True Tragedy, should be printed parallel
with revised texts of the plays in their fuller and later forms. Such
revised texts of the early sketches have never been printed. I have
given some reasons for this in a paper on Romeo and Juliet, Qi,
which will be published by the New Shakspere Society in an edition
of that play, and I. can give others. F. G. FLEAY.

51

2. ON METRICAL TESTS AS APPLIED TO
DRAMATIC POETRY.

PART II. FLETCHER; BEAUMONT, MASSINGER. BY THE REV.
F. G. FLEAY, M.A.

(Mead at the Society'1 s Second Meeting, March 27, 1 874.)

THE fact that Fletcher was aided in his plays by Massinger has
long been known, and in one or two instances conjectures have been
made that Massinger helped him in specific plays ; but on this point,
as well as on the question of what share Beaumont had in the plays
produced in the joint names of himself and Fletcher, no definite
conclusion has been arrived at. It will be convenient for future
reference if, before entering on our present inquiry, I subjoin a table
of the plays passing under the names of Beaumont and Fletcher,
with the dates of their production (when known) and the authors to
whom I assign them, pointing out the instances in which I differ
from Mr Dyce in this respect.

FIRST GROUP. PLAYS PRODUCED BEFORE BEAUMONT'S

DEATH.

Fate.

Name of Play.

Authors
(F. G. Fleay).

Authors (Dyce).

1607

* Woman Hater

B. and F.

F. only

1608

Philaster

B. and F.

B. and F.

1609

Maid's Tragedy

B. and F.

B. and F.

1610

Faithful Shepherdess

F.

F.

1611

K night of B. Pestle

B. and F.

B. and F.

?

4 Plays in one

B. and F.

B. and F.

1611
1611-12

King. and no King
Cupid's Revenge

B. and F.
B. and F.

B. and F.
B. and F.

1611?

"Love's Cure

B. and F.

F. (with date 1622)

1612

Coxcomb

B. and F.

B. and F.

1612?

Wit at several Weapons

B. and F.

B. and F.

1612?

Scornful Lady

B. and F.

B. and F.

1613 P

Thierry and Theodoret

B. and F.

B. and F. (F. only, Weber)

1613

'Captain

B. and F.

F. (after Weber)

1613?

*Knight of Malta

B. and F.

F. (B. and F., Weber)

1612

Masque

B.

B.

1C13

*Honest Man's Fortune

F. and Anon.

B. and F\

5:2 II. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO BEAUMONT, FLETCHER, &C.

SECOND GROUP. PLAYS BY FLETCHER ONLY (FLEAY).

Date.

Name of Play.

Author, according to
Dyce.

Old in 1628
Before 1619

Custom of Country
Bonduca

Probably F. only
F. (B. and F., Weber)

Before 1619

Valentinian

F. (B. and F., Darley)

Before 1619

Mad Lover

F.

1618

Loyal Subject

F.

After 1618

Double Marriage

F.

p

Humorous Lieutenant

F.

P

Women Pleased

F.

Old in 1633

Woman's Prize

F.

p

Chances

F.

1621

Island Princess

F.

1621

Pilgrim

F.

1621

Wild-Goose Chase

F.

?

Monsieur Thomas

F.

After 1614

Wit Without Money

Probably F. only

1624

Rule a Wife and Have a Wife

F.

1624

Wife for a Month \l\

THIRD GROUP. PLAYS BY FLETCHER AND ANOTHER
AUTHOR.

Date.

Name of Play.

Other author
(Fleay).

Other author (Dyce).

?

*Little French Lawyer

Massinger

Beaumont

After 1618

False One

do.

Massinger (after Weber)

1622

'Prophetess

do.

No other

1622

'Spanish Curate

do.

do.

1622

*Beggar's Bush

do.

do.

After F.'s death

'Elder Brother

do.

do. undoubtedly

After F.'s death

?

Lover's Progress
Very Woman

do.
do.

Massinger (after Weber)
Alterecl by do.

Before 1619

*Queen of Corinth

PMiddleton

Rowley

1623

Maid of Mill

Rowley

do.

1624?

* Bloody Brother

FMiddleton

do.

1622

Sea Voyage

v

Altered

1625-6

'Noble Subject

P

Shirley (after Weber)

P

Nice Valour

r>

?

1625-6

*Fair Maid of Inn

?

No other

1633

Night Walker

Shirley

Shirley

After F.'s death

Love's Pilgrimage

do.

do.

II. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO BEAUMONT, FLETCHER, &C. 53

Iii these tables B., F., M. stand for Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger,
respectively. I have omitted in the list the two plays in which
Fletcher finished Shakspere's "beginnings, namely, The Two Noble
Kinsmen and Henry VI II., as my rule is, in such cases, to consider
them under the head of the principal author, and not of the subor
dinate. I have also omitted The Laws of Candy, as I cannot trace
either Beaumont's or Fletcher's work in that play. Dyce also speaks
very doubtfully as to its authorship. With these omissions, I have
formed the plays into three groups of 17 each : the first of these
extends to Beaumont's death ; the second includes all the plays in
which Fletcher's hand alone is perceptible ; the third includes the
rest of the plays. It will be seen that I have starred in the table all
the plays as to the authorship of which I hold an opinion different
from Mr Dyce. This is the case as to five in the first group ; which
are important, and as to which I think him decidedly wrong. In
five cases in the third group I find traces of a second author where
Dyce does not ; and in four cases I differ from him as to who the
author is ; but in the second group we agree entirely, that it is solely
Fletcher's work. It will be well, then, to begin with these plays,
and examine what are their peculiarities in rhythm. They are dis
tinguished,

(1) By number of double or female endings ; these are more
numerous in Fletcher than in any other writer in the language, and
are sufficient of themselves to distinguish his works.

(2) By frequent pauses at the end of the lines ; this union of
" the stopped line " with the double ending is peculiar to Fletcher :
Massinger has many double endings, but few stopped lines.

(3) By moderate use of rhymes ; this distinguishes him from
Beaumont, who has more rhymes than Fletcher or Massinger, and
who in serious passages has few double endings.

(-1) By moderate use of lines of less than five measures : he has
more than Massinger, however.

(5) By using no prose whatever. Massinger also admits none :
there are two little bits in his works ; both, I think, intercalated.

(6) By admitting abundance of tri-syllabic feet, so that his
(Fletcher's) lines have to be felt rather than scanned ; it is almost
impossible to tell when Alexandrines are intended.

54 II. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO BEAUMONT, FLETCHER, &C.

I now give a table of the rhythmical peculiarities of this group ;
and a similar table of Massinger's plays in which he worked alone ;
these are rightly given in the editions, with one exception ; viz. A
Very Woman, which is, as Dyce conjectured, an alteration of
Fletcher's A Right Woman, which was previously supposed to be lost.

Name of Play.

No. of double
endings.

Rhyming
lines.

Alexan
drines.

Lines of
less than
5 meas.

Custom of Country

1756

14

5

8

Bonduca

1500

42

50

20

Valentinian

1947

38

10

26

Mad Lover

1507

8

—

26

Loyal Subject

2266

20

21

29

Double Marriage

1762

36

5

27

Humorous Lieutenant

2193

12

5

20

Women Pleased

1823

12

7

Woman's Prize

1678

22

5

57

Chances

1236

18

8

29

Island Princess

2059

12

6

29

Pilgrim

1845

18

6

18

Wild-Goose Chase

1949

6

3

24

Monsieur Thomas

1800

2

5

28

Wit Without Money

1543

6

50

21

Rule a Wife, &c.

1595

4

—

42

Wife for a Month

1764

8

—

21

Average 1777

16-3 10-6 25-5

N.B. The Chances is a very short Play, about four-fifths of an average one.
TABLE OF MASSINGER'S PLAYS.

Name of Play.

No. of double
endings.

Rhyming
lines.

Alexan
drines.

Lines of
less than
5 meas.

Unnatural Combat

934

10

1

2

Duke of Milan

1146

34

2

6

Bondman

1085

32

2

3

Renegado

1121

32

1

3

Parliament of Love

915

14

7

5

Roman Actor

960

32

1

8

Great Duke of Florence

1006

10

1

4

Maid of Honour

1056

22

3

—

Picture

1227

22

2

4

Emperor of East
A New Way, &c.

1058
1228

8
20

2

2

City Madam

1081

6

6

3

Guardian

1075

8

2

4

Bashful Lover

1070

24

4

3

Believe as You List

925

12

3

—

Average 1059

16-8

2-5

2-5

II. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO BEAUMONT, FLETCHER, &C. 55

On comparing these tables, it is evident that, as to the author
ship of a play, it would not be safe to conclude to which of these
two authors it belonged, on the evidence of the number of rhymes ;
but that the double endings would be conclusive. Fletcher's range
is from 1500 to 2000, in round numbers, with an average of 1775 ;
while Massinger's ranges from 900 to 1200, with an average of 1000.
A play, having between 1200 and 1500 double endings, and divi
sible into parts of distinctly different styles, would probably be a
joint production of Massinger's and Fletcher's, especially if the part
containing the greater proportion of female endings had also the larger
share of short lines and Alexandrines. Now examine the following
table of the plays which I assign to Fletcher and Massinger jointly.

TABLE OP
FLETCHER'S AND MASSINGER'S JOINT PLAYS.

56 TABLE OF FLETCHER'S AND MASSINGER'S JOINT PLAYS.

co *rj CM

I rH I ** rH I

O CO CM i— I rH

m co o oo o i>. b— co co os

OSCOOCOCMCOOrHrHrH

rH CM

CO O
CO t>.

fit PL, PH a,

OcMOOrHH9»rHOcOCO
CMrHrHf— (iOrHCM,— ICQ

a a a a a

.^ • ' co
irT co^ CM"

.„ CO CO

^ CM" CM-
CM

> CO

CO ^H

CM" CM^

- :! ^

> xo

r^ °* »

S :S -^jT

A '" «-

CM

CM

rH CO

6 o \

C/J 02

• .,4

o S ""•

^ •« I

3 < ^

^ B

a

I SL

« ^

2 S

1

II. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO BEAUMONT, FLETCHER, &C. 57

It is evident at once that all the metrical conditions required, are
fulfilled by the division here made. In every instance the propor
tion of double endings is that which would be expected from the
tables previously made for Fletcher and Massinger. There is the same
irregularity as to the number of rhymes ; the same excess of Alex
andrines and short lines on the part of Fletcher, to a similarly vary
ing amount. Now let us turn to evidence of a different character.
We all know Sir Aston Cockayne's lines addressed to Charles Cotton
concerning Beaumont :

' His own renown no such addition needs
To have a fame sprung from another's deeds,
And my good friend, old Philip Massinger,
With Fletcher writ in some that we see there.'

In another poem he says,

' For Beaumont, of those many, writ in few,
And Massinger in other few.'

And in a third place, speaking of Fletcher and Massinger, Sir Aston
says : —

' Plays did they write together, were great friends.'

If these plays which I have selected, and which do fulfil the neces
sary metrical requirements, are not the plays in question, are we to
look for them among those which do not fulfil the requirements 1
But again. Although these tests are satisfied by the division, the
division was not made by means of these tests : the weak-ending test
was the one I selected for this purpose. Massinger often ends his
lines with words that cannot be grammatically separated from the
next line ; articles, prepositions, auxiliaries &c., am, be, of, in, the,
this, &e. Fletcher uses the stopped line, usually. On this ground I
made the separation : I then made tables of the Acts and Scenes in
which each character appears, to see if the manner of work and the
apportionment of it between the authors could be traced ; and having
found my first judgment invariably confirmed, I then applied the
tabular test. As yet I have found all the tests give the same result.
It would not be possible to give all the investigations in one paper :
but for an example I will take the play of the Little French Lawyer,

58 II. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO BEAUMONT, FLETCHER, &C.

the first on our list. A simple reading of the text shows the exist
ence of two authors, from, the frequent changes of style and treat
ment : a marking of the unstopped lines makes the division exactly as
I give it in the table : and an examination of the plot shows that, of
the three stories contained in this play, namely, that of La Writ, and
that of Annabella, were assigned to Fletcher; the third, that of
Lamira, being given to Massinger.

JS~or does our evidence end here : on looking into the text we
find that in every place where Dinant's name occurs in the scenes
assigned to Fletcher, it is pronounced Dinant, paroxyton : but in the
Massinger scenes it is oxyton, Dinant. The fact being settled, then,
that there are two authors, and one of these Fletcher, and it being
quite evident (as we shall presently see) that Beaumont was not one,
— Beaumont introduces prose scenes, eschews double endings, and
rhymes abundantly, — our choice probably lies between Massinger,
Middleton, and Rowley, as being the only playwrights known
to have worked with Fletcher. But the phenomena are exactly the
same for all the eight plays in our list, and the dates of three of these
are about 1622 ; this gives another argument against Beaumont, who
died in 1615-16 ; and conclusively disposes of Rowley, whose style is
utterly unlike the writer's we are in search of, and who had not the
poetical faculty shown in the Massinger part of these eight plays. And
besides this, three of these plays have already been conjecturally as
signed to Massinger, as part author, by Dyce (in two instances follow
ing Weber), who has also given us his opinion that A Very Woman
is a rifacimento of A Right Woman by Fletcher, which it certainly
is. It is strange that, having got so far on the right track, Dyce did
not anticipate our restoring all eight of these plays to Fletcher and
Massinger ; and still more strange, that Seward and Weber should
single out the character of La Writ, who never speaks a line that is
not pure Fletcher in every way, as being the unassisted work of
Beaumont.

There is another point of external evidence yet to notice: the
first five of these plays were produced, three of them certainly in
1622 ; two of them probably very near that date. The other three
were not produced till after Fletcher's death. Now, 1622 and 1623

II. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO BEAUMONT, FLETCHER, &C. 59

are just the dates in which no play of Fletcher's (unassisted) is on
our list; and after the notice of the Virgin Martyr, October 1620,
in the book of Sir George Buck. Master of the Revels, there is no
entry as to Massinger till December 1623, when the Bondman was
produced. This may be regarded as finally settling this question.

With regard to the other subdivisions of the third group, as only
three of the nine plays contained in them were produced in
Fletcher's lifetime, they are far less interesting, as not giving aid in
examining the method of the poet's" work. I give a table of their
rhythm, however, for the sake of completing our scheme ; and for
the same reason add a table of the plays in which Massinger worked
with other authors.

Note, K. stands for Eowley in this table, and Md. for Middleton.

TABLE OF JOINT PLAYS BY

FLETCHER AND MIDDLETON (?) ; FLETCHER AND EOWLEY ; FLETCHER

AND SHIRLEY; MASSINGER AND FIELD; MASSINGER AND

DEKKER ; MIDDLETON AND KOWLEY.

GO TABLE OP JOINT PLATS OP FLETCHER, ROWLEY, &C.

•— I— too CO O OO OS 1:5 CM

CO rH CM — H L^ CM

CM r— I

r— I OO CM O CM O CO I— I
CM OO r— I r— I CO

II

CO 1 t— i CM OO QO

.3,

*"H OO t>» >O CO CO *^ ^^ Oi O4 O^ C^ t>* XO

^^ CO CO O* £-•» to ^O *O irt CO ^O CO l>» CO

COiOO^OO O^ CMOCM t>- *^ r- 1 lO G^

| i— 1 i— I r— I ~B rH

/"^-^•^•N /^fcA,^ f^, pi t /r^^>^^^ f*^< f^< CL CL. QM Q|

^ ^ r-i ,-H ^ CM CM H*^ HH 10 G>

.I"! I "^ ^rnrH^

— *£ T3 g

.nis.

g « CM

£ ^ rH CM*

-0 -1 co

«.s c g ^^^
£ £ <« .a -5 a >

'

CO *^

-a a

•e «> .t

4M *>

<§>

3 S « ^5

r? • *g P S

|J*i i I.I

^ ^ H^ ^ >- O

II. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO BEAUMONT, FLETCHER, &0. 61

The work in the Bloody Brother is curiously arranged. Fletcher
wrote all the parts connected with the poisoning attempted by La
Torch, — namely, ii. 1, 2 ; in, 2 ; and the parts involving Edith, —
namely, iii. 2 ; v. 2 ; and the impassioned speeches of Edith in iii. 1 ;
v. 1 ; the rest is not his. The Maid of the Mill is noticeable as
being the only play containing prose, in which Fletcher had any
share, that was produced after Beaumont's death and during
Fletcher's lifetime. Fletcher's part was the story of Ismenia and
Rowley's that of Florimel at the outset ; but they soon changed the
parts, and after changing kept them distinct to the end. I cannot
agree with Dyce in assigning Rollo and The Queen of Corinth partly
to Rowley ; they seem much more like Middleton, and are far re
moved from Rowley's style. I have not yet, however, had oppor
tunity to examine Middleton carefully enough to give a positive
opinion on the subject.

We have now left for consideration only the group of plays
produced before Beaumont's death. The dates of most of these are
known ; but some we cannot determine from external evidence. I
have assigned conjectural dates to them, for reasons which will
appear. Before examining these, it is necessary to determine the
general characteristics of Beaumont's metre. This has been hitherto
regarded as an insoluble problem. The habit, of which we are tra
ditionally and rightly informed, which Beaumont and Fletcher had
contracted, namely, that of writing together in the same scene,
seemed to forbid any analysis being applied which could separate
the two authors' work. This separation can, however, be made, as
we shall see. "We know from our second group (of Fletcher's un
doubted plays) what his characteristics are : no prose ; many double
endings ; pauses at the end of lines. If we find any work in which
these characteristics are entirely absent, that work will probably not
be Fletcher's. Now, there is a work called Four plays in One, that
is evidently by two authors. The first two of these short plays are
in every respect different from the other two. The latter two are in
Fletcher's usual style. In 7 pages we find 673 double endings;
5 rhymes ; 4 incomplete lines. In the former two plays, in 1 8
pages there are only 172 double endings; 85 rhymes; 13 incorn-

62 II. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO BEAUMONT, FLETCHER, d'C.

plete lines, and a considerable amount of prose ; the lines also are in
Shakspere's later manner, ending on particles, &c., so as to run on
continuously with the succeeding line. These must be by Beau
mont. "We have, then, here the characteristics of his style unmixt
with Fletcher's, which gives us the key we require. We can now
separate their work.

It may seem strange that, since Weber had rightly apportioned
these plays to our authors, characteristics so salient should never
have led any critic to assign the other plays rightly. This, I think,
may be explained. There is an inveterate habit among editors to
read their authors too much in the order in which the old editions
were printed. I can, in many recent issues of great value, trace the
mischief and inaccuracy that is still produced by this cause, and in
none more than in Dyce's * Beaumont and Fletcher.'

The Woman Hater was first published in Quarto, and was undoubt
edly the earliest of these plays that has reached us. Therefore Dyce
studies it first, finds it to be almost entirely by one author; finds, more
over, that it was first published in the name of Fletcher only, and
concludes that it was mainly by him. Hence he gets a false notion of
Fletcher's style that invalidates all his conclusions as far as this first
group is concerned. I doubt not that other editors have been
similarly influenced ; and for myself, I can say that the acceptance of
this conclusion of Dyce's kept me two years from seeing the proper
starting-point, namely, the plays written by Fletcher alone after
Beaumont's death. As to the title-page of the Woman Hater, it does
not stand alone. The first play published in the names of Beaumont
and Fletcher jointly, was The Scornful Lady in 1616; but Cupid1 o
Revenge was published in 1615 in Fletcher's name singly. The
Woman Hater (1607), Knight of the Burning Pestle (1613), Maid's
Tragedy (1619, 1622), and Thierry and Theodoret (1621), were
published without author's names. In 1648, Thierry and Theodoret
and TJie Woman Hater were published in Fletcher's name singly ;
in 1649 both of them, in the joint names of Beaumont and Fletcher,
as Cupid's Revenge had already been in 1630. Now, that Cupid's
Revenge and Thierry and Theodoret were joint works, all the editors
admit. This one play, The Woman Hater, is treated differently by

II. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO BEAUMONT, FLETCHER, &C. G3

them ; in opposition, I think, to the external evidence, and certainly
to the internal. I must, however, before giving my theory on this
group, call your attention to the following table, which is similar to
those already under our notice for the other groups.

TABLE OF BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER'S JOINT PLAYS.

64

TABLE OP BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER'S JOINT PLAYS.

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II. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO BEAUMONT, FLETCHER, &C. 65

It will be seen from this table that Fletcher takes an increasing
share in the plays as time progresses. In The Woman Hater his
work is scarcely traceable : in the Captain he has two-thirds of the
play assigned to him. And in every instance when the dates are
ascertained on external evidence this law holds good, and is dis
tinctly shown by the increasing number of double endings, which,
in distinguishing these authors, is an infallible criterion : I conceive
I cannot therefore be far wrong in intercalating the plays the dates
of which are not known, according to the same law, as I have done
in the first table accordingly. We have now for the first time an
arrangement of these plays, which there is good reason for believing
to be the chronological one, and which at any rate is made on an
intelligible principle, namely, that of the amount of work contributed
by each author, and includes the chronological arrangement as well,
so far as it is certainly known. I have still to make a few remarks
as to the points where I differ from Dyce. As to the authorship of
the Knight of Malta and the Captain, the difference is not important,
as those plays certainly are two-thirds Fletcher. Had Dyce not been
misled by the Woman Hater, and had he been aware that Fletcher
wrote no prose, he would not have made any mistake. As to Love's
Cure, there is an allusion to a Eussian ambassador who lay lieger in
the great frost, which is supposed to fix the date to 1622 : but the
allusion is very uncertain, and certainly cannot weigh against the in
ternal evidence of Beaumont's handiwork. Moreover, there should be
much less importance attached to allusions of this kind in fixing
dates than is usually done : they are often insertions of a later time,
or reproductions of plays, and can only be trusted as showing the
date after which a play cannot have been written : as to the limit in
the other direction, they are worthless, or nearly so.

The play of the Honest Man's Fortune is partly by Fletcher ; but
that the other part is Beaumont's I greatly doubt : it reads to me
differently from his other works. Still I have not entirely examined
this play, and prefer to leave the question open : it may just possibly
be Beaumont's ; at any rate, only one Act is Fletcher's.

Before concluding this paper I must again repeat that it is only
preliminary. The matters I believe to be absolutely fixed in it by

TKANSACTIONS. 5

66 II. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO BEAUMONT, FLETCHER, &C.

the application of metrical tests are, the part authorship of Mas-
singer in the plays given in the table above ; the relative amount of
Beaumont's work ; and the classification of these plays. If on these
points I have not produced conviction, the fault lies in the narrow
limits which I feel it right to impose on a first work of this kind ;
or more probably in defective manner of exposition. I am certain
that no one can go through the detailed evidence in the way I have
done, and remain unconvinced. To produce conviction in others who
can have set before them only part of the mass of statistics on this
subject, is very difficult. In my next papers I hope to produce all the
evidence in full as to one or two plays that have passed under
Shakspere's name. To do this for all the plays I have considered
would require many volumes ; but I hope the sample will be a fair
one, and that my work will be judged from it.

TABLE OF QUARTO EDITIONS.

(FOR REFERENCE.)

Woman Hater, 1607 (n. n.) ; 1648 (F.) ; 1649 (B. and F.).

Faithful Shepherdess, no date (F.) ; 1629 (F.) ; 1634 (F.), &c.

Knight of Burning Pestle, 1613 (n. n.) ; 1635 (B. and F.).

Masque, no date (n. n.) ; ascribed to B. in Folio.

Cupid's Revenge, 1615 (F.) ; 1630 (B. and F.) ; 1635.

Scornful Lady, 1616 (B. and F.) ; 1625 ; 1630 ; 1635 ; 1639, &c.

Maid's Tragedy, 1619 (n. n.) ; 1622 (n. n.) ; 1630 (B. and F ) ; 1638 ; 1 641, &c.

King and no King, 1619 (B. and F.); 1625 ; 1631 ; 1639, &c.

Philaster, 1620 (B. and F.) ; 1622 ; 1628 ; 1634 ; 1639, &c.

Thierry and Theodoret, 1621 (n. n.) ; 1648 (F.) ; 1649 (B. and F.).

Wit without Money, 1639 (B. and F.), &c.

Monsieur Thomas, 1639 (F.).

Rule a Wife, &c., 1640 (F.).

Elder Brother, 1637 (F.).

Bloody Brother, 1639 (by B. J. F.) ; 1640 (F.).

Night Walker, 1640 (F.).

Two Noble Kinsmen, 1634 (F. and Shakspere).

None of these were printed in the first Folio, but all were in the
second.

C7

PASSAGES TO ILLUSTRATE PAPER II.

Evadne. Alas, Amintor, thinkst tliou I forbear

To Sleep with thee because I have put on
A maiden's strictness 1 Look upon these cheeks,
And thou shalt find the hot and rising blood
Unapt for such a vow ! No ! in this heart
There dwells as much desire and as much will
To put wish'd act in practice as e'er yet
Was known to woman : and they have been shown
Both. But it was the folly of thy youth
To think this beauty, to what land soe'er
It shall be call'd, shall stoop to any second.
I do enjoy the best, and in that height
Have sworn to stand or die. You guess the man.

Maid's Tragedy, Act ii. Sc. 1. (Beaumont.)

Evadne. No, I do not !

I do appear the same, the same Evadne
Brest in the shames I lived in, the same monster.
But these are names of honor to what I am :
I do present myself the foulest creature,
Most poisonous, dangerous, and despised of men,
Lerna e'er bred or Nilus. I am hell
Till you, my dear lord, shoot your light into me,
The beams of your forgiveness : I am soul-sick,
And wither with the fear of one condemn'd,
Till I have got your pardon.

Maid's Tragedy, Act iv. Sc. 1. (Fletcher )

Cleremont. They are both brave fellows,

Tried and approved : and I am proud to encounter
With men from whom no honor can be lost.

G8 PASSAGES TO ILLUSTRATE PAPER II.

They will play up to a man and set him off.
Whene'er I go to the field, Heaven keep me from
The meeting of an unflesh'd youth or coward.
The first to get a name comes on too hot ;
The coward is so swift in giving ground,
There is no overtaking him without
A hunting nag, well-breath'd too.

Little French Lawyer, Act i. Sc. 2. (Massinger.)

Cleremont. Colour'd with smooth excuses. Was't a friend's part,
A gentleman's, a man's that wears a sword,
And stands upon the point of reputation,
To hide his head that when his honor call'd him,
Call'd him aloud and led him to his fortune- 1
To halt and slip the collar ! By my life
I would have given my life I'd never known thee !
Thou hast eaten canker-like into my judgment
With this disgrace, thy whole life cannot heal again.

Little French Lawyer, Act ii. Sc. 3. (Fletcher.)

Antonio. Give me that face

And I am satisfied, upon whose shoulders
So e'er it grows. Juno, deliver us
Out of this amazement ! beseech you, goddess,
Tell us of our friends ! How does Ismeria ?
And how does Isabella 1 Both in good health
I hope as you yourself are.

Maid i' the Mill, Act iv. Sc. 1. (Rowley.)

Antonio. Oh 'tis a spark of beauty !

And where they appear so excellent in little
They will but flame in great. Extension spoils 'em.
Martine, learn this ! the narrower that our eyes
Keep way unto our object, still the sweeter

PASSAGES TO ILLUSTRATE PAPER II. 69

That comes unto us ; great bodies are like great countries,
Discovering still, toil and no pleasure finds •'em.

Maid f the Mill, Act i. Sc. 2. (Fletcher.)

Sophia. Alas, my son, nor Fate nor Heaven itself

Can or would wrest my whole care of your good
To any least secureness in your ill !
What I urge issues from my curious fear,
Lest you should make your means to scope your snare :
Doubt of sincereness is the only mean
Not to incense it, but corrupt it clean.

Rollo, Act iii. Sc. 1. (? Middleton.)

Sophia. Oh my blest boys, the honor of my years,

Of all my cares the bounteous rewarders !
Oh let me thus embrace you, thus for ever
Within a mother's love lock up your friendship !
And my sweet sons once more with mutual twinings
As one chaste bed begot you, make one body !
Blessings from Heaven in thousand showers fall on you !

Hollo, Act ii. Sc. 3. (Fletcher.)

Philippo. Appeal to Reason :

She will reprieve you from the power of grief
Which rules but in her absence : hear me say
A sovereign message from her, which in duty
And love to your own safety you ought hear.
Why do strive so 1 Whither would you fly 1
You cannot wrest yourself away from care :
You may from counsel : you may shift your place
But not your person : and another clime
Makes you no other.

Love's Pilgrimage, Act v. Sc. -i. (Shirley.)

70 PASSAGES TO ILLUSTRATE PAPER II.

Philippo. For my sister

I do believe you : and so near blood has made us,
With the dear love I ever bore your virtues,
That I will be a brother to your griefs too.
Be comforted 'tis no dishonor, sister,
To love nor to love him you do : he's a gentleman
Of as sweet hopes as years : as many promises
As there be growing truths and great ones.

Theodoria. Oh, sir !

Love's Pilgrimage, Act i. Sc. 2. (Fletcher.)

Dorothea. Be nigh me still, then !

In golden letters I'll set down that day
That gave thee to me. Little did I hope
To meet such worlds of comfort in thyself,
This little pretty body : when I coming
Forth of the temple heard my beggar boy,
My sweet-faced godly beggar boy, crave an alms,
Which with glad hand I gave, with lucky hand !
And when I took thee home, my most chaste bosom
The thought was filled with no hot wanton fire,
But with a holy flame mounting still higher
On wings of cherubim s than it did before.

Virgin Martyr, Act ii. Sc. 1. (Dekker.)

Dorothea. Even thy malice serves

To me but as a ladder to mount up
To such a height of happiness, where I shall
Look down with scorn on thee and on the world :
When circled with true pleasures placed above
The reach of death or time 'twill be my glory
To think at what an easy price I bought it.
There's a perpetual spring, perpetual youth :
No joint-benumbing cold or scorching heat.
Famine fior age have any being there.

PASSAGES TO ILLUSTRATE PAPER II. 71

Forget for shame your Tempe ! Bury in
Oblivion your feign'd Hesperian orchards !

Virgin Martyr, Act iv. Sc. 3. (Massiiiger.)

Charalois. And though this country, like a viperous mother
Not only hath eat up ungratefully
All means of thee her son, but last thyself,
Leaving thy heir so poor and indigent
He cannot raise thee a poor monument
Such as a flatterer or a usurer hath :
Thy worth in every honest breast builds one,
Making their friendly hearts thy funeral stone.

Fatal Dowry, Act ii. Sc. 1. (Field.)

Charalois. I but attended

Your lordship's pleasure. For the fact as of
The former, I confess it, but with what
Base wrongs I was unwillingly drawn to it,
To my few words there are some other proofs
To witness this for truth. "When I was married,
For then I must begin, the slain Novall
Was to my wife in way of our French courtship
A most devoted servant.

Fatal Dowry, Act v. Sc. 2, (Massingor.)

Simonides. By my troth, Sir,

I partly do believe it : conceive, Sir,
You have indirectly answered my question.
I did not doubt the fundamental ground
Of law in general for the most solid :
But this particular law that me concerns,
Now at the present, if that be firm and strong
And powerful, and forcible, and permanent 1
I am a young man that has an old father.

Old Law, Act i. Sc. 1. (Rowley.)

72 PASSAGES TO ILLUSTRATE PAPER II.

Simonides. Know then, Cleanthes, there is none can be
A good son and bad subject ; for if princes
Be called the people's fathers, then the subjects
Are all his sons, and he that flouts the prince
Doth disobey his father : there you're gone.

I say again, this act of thine expresses
A double disobedience ; as our princes
Are fathers, so they are our sovereigns too,
And he that doth rebel 'gainst sovereignty
Doth commit treason in the height of degree.
And now thou art quite gone.

Old Law, Act v. Sc. 1. (Middleton.)

The above passages have been taken at random from the authors
quoted under the following limitations : —

1. For every pair of authors that wrote together in the plays
considered in this paper, two corresponding quotations are given.

2. These pairs of quotations are in each instance taken from the
same play and from speeches of the same personage ; in order to
ensure more accurate comparison. They are also as near as may be
of the same length.

73

DISCUSSION ON MR FLEAY'S SECOND PAPER.

March 27, 1874.

THE discussion was opend by the Director, who said : — " I am
sorry that I have only had time to read through the first and third
of the Four Plays in One; but the reading of these has left no doubt
in my mind that the first Play is Beaumont's, and the third Fletch
er's, as Mr Fleay says. I have also examind with great delight the
play of The Two Noble Kinsmen, of which the late Mr S. Hickson in
1847 — followd now independently by Mr Fleay — assignd to Shak-
spere and Fletcher each his own part, as you will see in the Appendix
to our Transactions. I think there can be no doubt that Mr Hick-
son's division is absolutely right. I have not for many a year done
a more convincing-to-me bit of work than going through the The Two
Noble Kinsmen, pen in hand, and, whenever the style and power
changed, ticking off Fletcher's extra syllables — sometimes with a
second accented one,1 — and noticing how largely these decreast when
Shakspere began again. The converse of this happend when I tried
the stopt line. Shakspere's often use of the unstopt line, changed
into Fletcher's seldom use of it, and this test thus confirmd Mr
Hickson's division of the play, as you will see by my Table in the
Appendix, after Mr Fleay's confirmation of Mr Hickson's results.
How the great value of Mr Hickson's article came to be so long

1 P.S. On the point that Mr K. Simpson brought forward afterwards at
this discussion — the way in which Fletcher's lines often tempt you to read
them somewhat like Needy Knife- Grinder ones — I add 14 specimens out of
44 lines in Act ii. sc. 2, of The Two Noble Kinsmen : —

Clap her a- | board || to-morrow night | and stow her 33

He'll eat a | hornbook || ere he fail | go to ! , 42

And she must | see the Duke || and she must | dance too 45

Shall we be | lusty || All the boys in | Athens 46

By any | means || our thing of learning | says so 51

We'll see the | sports || then every man | to's tackle 55

By your leaves | honest friends || pray you, whither | go you 60

Where were you | bred || you know it not. | Not far, sir 63

Are there such | games to-day || Yes, marry, | are there 64

Will be in | person there || What pastimes | are they 66

Wrestling and | running || 'Tis a pretty j fellow 67

Thou will not | go along. || Not yet, sir. ) Well, sir 68

He wrestle ! | he roast eggs ! || Come, lets be | gone, lads 73

I durst not | wish for || Well I could have | wrestled 75

Mr Spedding says that none of these lines tempt him to read them at all
like grinders ; and he proves that none of them ought to be so read. He says
we are bound to take them as 5-measure lines, and read them so if we can, not
straining them into 4-measure ones. The question is one of tendency ; and I
leave it to the reader's ear.

74 DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. FLETCHEii's METRE.

overlookt I cannot understand. Dyce does not notice it. The
Cambridge Editors do not even admit The Tivo Noble Kinsmen into
their edition of Shakspere. Yet, as Mr Furness wrote to me last
November, 'for portions of it (The Two N. K.) as Shakespeare's,
one would go to the stake ; ' and there is one passage in the Play —
Arcite's address to Mars — which is nearly as fine as anything Shak
spere ever wrote. Truly Mr Hickson did us a real service in settling
that the greater part of the play was Shakspere's ; and Mr Fleay's
confirmation shows how good Mr Hickson's taste was.

1 Mr Hickson's discovery has, of course, a great additional interest
to all us Chaucer students, who like to feel that Shakspere read and
loved the old poet whom we love too. The Two Noble Kinsmen is,
as you know, founded on the story of Palamon and Arcite, which
Chaucer told in his Knight's Tale. Happily Shakspere has not
ruind the two knights' characters as he has, in his Troilus, that of
Cryseyde, whom Chaucer handled so lovingly, and spared for very
ruth. But I still think that the beautiful old story of the two
brother knights does lose a good deal of its aroma in its transfer to
the boards of the Elizabethan stage, even though a greater than
Chaucer set it there. However, one must not make comparisons
when one gets a fresh link forgd between the two truest poets that
England as yet owns."

DR ABBOTT. I think that the principal interest attaching to this
Paper, at least for us of the New Shakspere Society, will arise from
its connection with Shakspere, and in particular the authorship of
Henry VIII., which has been supposed by several persons to have
been, at least in great part, written by Fletcher. And I should like
at once to call your attention to a part of Henry VIII. , Act iii. Sc.
2, line 430. The passage is very well known, and figures in many
extracts familiar to us from our schoolboy days ; — it is the speech to
Cromwell. I will just read a few lines out of that. I think it is
very important indeed that, in considering the peculiarities of
Fletcher we should observe that there is a great deal more than the
mere extra syllable at the end. There is a certain smoothness in the
lines, in the first place. There is an absence of the jarring conso
nants in which Shakspere delights : moreover, the first syllable in
Fletcher's lines is constantly a monosyllable, generally unemphatic,
so that it may be easily taken away, and the result is that you have
a verse which does not read like a dramatic verse at all, but like a
trochaic verse : —

" But thou hast forced me,
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.
Let' s I dry our eyes : and thus far hear me, Cromwell ;

when I am forgotten, as I shall be,

sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention

And

And

Of | me more must be heard of, say, I taught thee,

Say, | Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,

DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. PECULIARITIES OF FLETCHER'S METRE. 75

And I sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,
Found | thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in :
A | sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it."

Now in every one of these lines you may take off the first mono
syllable and the result is a sort of trochaic line, quite unlike Shak-
spere's. Shakspere of course indulges in the extra syllable, but you
cannot read the line in that monotonous way, — it is broken up in
different ways ; sometimes by pauses, —

" To be, — or not to be : — that is the question : " Whether, &c.

Again, often, when he has an extra syllable at the end, Shak
spere begins the verse with a long syllable that cannot be left out
at the beginning. Thus : —

" Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,"

The second might be a Fletcherian line : but then follows : —
" Or to take arms against a sea of troubles."

You cannot leave or out or lay stress on to, so as to give the verse
Fletcher's trochaic cadence.

I have read a specimen showing the Fletcherian lines in Henry
VIII. I will now read some lines from Fletcher himself, and
show the metrical similarity. They are taken from a dialogue in
The Island Princess (Act iv. Sc. 1 ).

And here I take this opportunity of saying that, when Shakspere
uses the extra syllable, he does it generally in moments of passion
and excitement, — in questions, — in quarrel, — seldom in quiet dia
logue or narrative, and seldom in any serious or pathetic passage.
The following is a quiet dialogue quite free from excitement, and
therefore I have selected it as showing the difference between Shak-
spere's and Fletcher's use of the extra syllable.

' ' King. So \ far and truly you have discovered to me
The | former currents of my life and fortune.
That I am bound to acknowledge ye most holy
And certainly to credit your predictions
Of what are yet to come.

Gov. I am no Iyer,

'Tis strange I should, and live so near a neighbour,
But these are not my ends.

King. Pray ye sit, good father.

Certain a reverent man and most religious.

Gov. I, that beliefs well now, and let me work then :
I'll make ye curse Religion ere I leave ye.
I have liv'd a long time, Son, a mew'd up man.

(That is the first Iambic line.)
tfequester'd by the special hand of heaven

76 DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. PECULIARITIES OF FLETCHER'S METRE.

From the world's vanities, bid farewell to follies

And shook hands with all heats of youth aud pleasure ;

As in a dream these twenty years I've slumber 'd ;

Many a cold morn have I in medifo tion

And searching out the hidden will of heaven

Lain shaking under, many a burning sun

Has sear'd my body, and boil'd up my blood,

Feebled my knees and stamp't a meagreness

Upon my figure, all to find out knowledge,,

Which I have now attain'd to, thanks to heaven :

All for my country's good too ; and many a vision

And many a sight from heaven which has been terrible

Wherein the goods and evils of these Islands

Were lively shadowed."

Now what I desire to call your attention to in that metre, is,
1st, the prevalence of the extra syllable ; 2nd, the avoidance of
strong combinations of consonants ; 3rd, the frequent monosyllabic
— generally unemphatic — word at the beginning ; and 4th, the fact
that, where there is a pause in the middle of the line, it is very often
of the same kind as the final pause ; I mean a trochaic pause. This
may be illustrated by the second extract from the Maid's Tragedy,
on page 67 of Mr Fleay's paper.

" Drest in the shame I lived in, the same monster"
11 The beams of your forgiveness : I am soul-sick."
"Till I have got you? pardon."

I have ventured, at some length, to call attention to these pecu
liarities of Fletcher's style ; because, while I attach very great im
portance to Mr Fleay's paper, and quite believe with him that Shak-
spere's part may be disentangled from the Fletcherian part of The
Two Noble Kinsmen, I still think we may fall into a too mechanical
method of looking at these plays ; and also, perhaps, we may not be
doing justice to Mr Fleay's critical acumen in assigning the different
passages to different authors, unless we show that there are other
characteristics of Fletcher's style, which are found in the passages
that he rightly attributes to Fletcher.

Before concluding I should just like to show that Shakspere uses
the extra syllable-endings of his to a very different degree in different
parts of the same play. This, if it can be shown, may be useful as
a caution against believing that the prevalence of the extra syllable
in itself is a proof of the presence or absence of Shakspere's hand.

In some scenes of certain plays Shakspere uses the double-ending
scarcely at all, and very freely in other scenes of the same plays.
Take Richard II, Act i. Sc. 1. That is a spirited scene, where great
nobles are introduced contending ; it, has a sort of a trumpet sound
about it : consequently the dramatic line is very appropriate, and
the extra syllable comes freely enough. Take the sixth line :

DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. SHAKSPERE'S USE OF THE EXTRA SYLLABLE. 77

" Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray."
Then again King Richard's answer :

" Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him,
If he appeal the Duke on ancient malice ! "

And Gaunt's reply :

" As near as I could sift him on that argument,
(which I consider as an extra-syllable line — not an Alexandrine)

On some apparent danger seen in him

Aim'd at your highness, no inveterate malice."

Without further quotation I may say that the whole scene is full,
or comparatively full, of these extra-syllabic endings. There are 24
of them in 146 lines. But now, in Act v. Sc. 5, there is only 1 in
119. And the reason is obvious, — we have no longer a spirit-stirring
scene of conflict, but Richard's soliloquies in prison.

" I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world :
And for because the world is populous
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it : yet I'll hammer it out."

The spirit of the scene is different, and the line varies in conse
quence.

Other references may be given for those who would like to in
vestigate the matter further. Take Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio's
description of Queen Mab, Act i. Sc. 4, 1. 53. In the whole of that
description there is not one extra syllable, because it is narrative, —
fanciful, beautiful, quietly flowing narrative. But in Act iv. Sc. 2,
there is a large proportion. There are 9 double-endings in 39 lines
of blank verse.

Take again The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act ii. Sc. 4, there
are 4 in 165; and in Act v. Sc. 4, there are only 16 in 173. In
these and other cases, the reason for variation might easily be given.

When Shakspere does use that peculiar Fletcherian trochaic line,
he often does it to express indignation, as in Hamlet :

0 Villain, villain, smiling, damned villain.

Hamlet, i. 5, 1. 106.
.Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain.

Ib. ii. 2, 1. 609.
" / know not whether to depart in silence."

Richard HI, iii. 7, 1. 141.
" How ill white hairs become a fool and jester."

2 Henry IV, v. 5, 1. 51.
" We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us."

Henry V, i. 2, 1. 59.

78 DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. DR NICHOLSON ON MR FLEAY's TESTS.

" And will you rend our ancient love asunder ? "

Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 2, 1. 215.

But, as a rule, the trochaic effect in Shakspere's extra syllabic-
lines is destroyed by an emphatic monosyllable at the beginning, or
by an iambic pause in the middle. The following lines are, many
of them, extra-syllabic, but they cannot be read as trochaic : —

" One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is the madman : the lover, all as frantic
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, &c."

Midsummer Night's Dream, v. 1,1. 9 — 12.

May I be allowed to conclude these remarks by expressing my
belief that Mr Fleay's system is likely to originate a new, and I hope
a more thorough, school of Shaksperian criticism.

Some may object that the New Shakspere Society is devoting
itself to a mere measurement of lines and numbering of syllables.
But, in my humble opinion, this careful collection of facts combined
with, say, a hundredth part of the scholarlike pains bestowed by
Englishmen on Sophocles or ^Eschylus, will ultimately enable us,
not only to elucidate the chronology of Shakspere's plays and to
reject authoritatively much that is now imputed to him, but also to
cast a new light upon his language and style, and to make him more
intelligible, and more intelligently admired.

DR B. NICHOLSON : — I agree with Dr Abbott's remarks, and in
reference to them shall have a word or two to say presently regarding
The Faithful Slieplierdess^ a play wholly by Fletcher, but omitted,
and for some reasons rightly omitted, in the table on p. 54. It
appears to me that one great value of Mr Fleay's present paper is,
that he has taken several tests together, and, so to speak, has tested
the tests. One such testing especially struck me : having divided
certain plays into portions according to the stopped-line test, he then
found that the other tests confirmed these divisions. This shows the
great value of that test, and supports the view of those who say that,
if they must take a single test, they would prefer this to any other.
But if we are going to be arithmetical let us be strictly so, and, though
it may appear ungrateful to say it, knowing Mr Fleay's kindness in
preparing these papers at so short a notice, I would remark that we
have the same want as in the previous paper, and a greater. Turn
ing to page 54 you will find the number of double or syllabic
endings and the number of ryming lines, but, from want of the
total number of lines, you have no real arithmetical means of com
paring one play with another.

In that table he says that all these plays are acknowledged as
Fletcher's. But the evidence, irrespective of his tests, is very small
indeed. For instance, The Island Princess, The Pilgrim, and Tlte
Wild Goose Chace, are taken to be wholly Fletcher's, because they

DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. DR NICHOLSON'S CRITICISMS ON FLETCHER. 79

were played at Court in the year 1621, and because it is known that
Fletcher's plays were played at Court. But the ' wholly by Fletcher '
is surely on such grounds a mere assumption. There are also in the
group two plays to which I would specially call attention — Bonduca,
and Wit without Money. In each there are 50 Alexandrines, a
number not approached by any other play in the table ; there is a
jump from 21 in The Loyal Subject, to these fifties. Then of double-
endings, there are 1500 in Bonduca, and in Wit without Money
1543, and in Bonduca 42 ryming lines. Now here we find the
want of the total number of lines ; but, supposing that these plays
are of about the same length as, say, The Humorous Lieutenant, or
The Island Princess, — in the former of which are 5 Alexandrines as
against 50, 2193 double-endings as against 1500 and 1543, and 12
ryming lines as against 42 and 6, — then, according to Mr Fleay's
own calculations, we should look for different authorships. I confess
it does not seem to me sufficiently proved, either by external or
internal tests, that the whole of this group are wholly by Fletcher.

With regard to The Faithful Shepherdess, there is, no doubt,
good reason for its omission from this table, inasmuch as it is a
pastoral, a play of a different character from the rest. Still, it is a
play, and in five acts, and was written for the stage and acted. Now,
what Dr Abbott has said as to differences in stopped lines applies, I
believe, to all the other tests. An examination of the first act of
The Faithful Shepherdess shows that the laws of Fletcher-character
istics deduced from the other plays, do not hold here. In it we have
— I include all five-feet measures, but not the continuous passages of
four feet —

Unrhymed Rhyme lines

Sc. 1 63 10

— 2 115 92

— 3 2 176

Act i. 180 278 5 or 7

And the three-syllable foot is very rare, whether we take the
rhymed or the unrhymed lines ; and the double-endings, though I
have not counted them, are much fewer. Hence The Faithful Shep
herdess affords strong proof that our arithmetical countings cannot
be made absolute, or anything like absolute ; and that the character
and subject of a play, and the author's views as to its mode of
treatment, are modifying influences which cannot, without error, be
ignored.

One other remark before leaving this play. Beaumont, in his
commendatory verses before the edition of 1609 or 1610, expresses
strong contempt for the stage and its audiences, calls them a rout

Scarce two of which can understand the laws
Which they should judge by,

80 DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. THE DATE OF FLETCHER'S LOVERS CURE.

and says, that he and these public things agree so ill that, but to do
right to his friend, he would not have given these few lines to the
world. But in Mr Fleay's arrangement (p. 51), this play comes
between The Maid's Tragedy, two-thirds of which is given to Beau
mont (p. 64), and A King or No King, of which he is supposed to
have written rather less, yet more than one-half. Thus we arrive at
the improbable supposition that Beaumont took the greater share in
these plays, although in the short intermediate time he forswore
play-writing, and took no part in The Faithful Shepherdess.

Another play that I have examined, with especial reference to
its date, is Love's Cure, which Mr Fleay — therein differing from all
others — places in his first group. He places it also near the middle,
so that, following his law, Beaumont may be supposed to have
written about one-half. On turning to the table, at p. 64, there
seems to be some mistake or dropping out in the printing. There is
no division of the play between Beaumont and Fletcher, there are
only 622 double-endings, a very small Fletcher-allowance, and 66
rhyming lines, a very large Fletcher-allowance, and no statement as
to how much of the play these numbers include. Supposing, how
ever, that Beaumont wrote only one-third, still this is altogether
against the evidence of the epilogue, evidently written on the original
production of the play. Commencing with ' Our author ' — not
' authors ' — it in eight lines says, ' He cares not,' and ends with ' he
hath his ends.'

Next comes the passage as to the Russian ambassador (Act ii.
Sc. 2), which Mr Fleay speaks of as uncertain. Now, as to the
reference and its limiting date, there is no uncertainty. There were
three great frosts in James' reign; one in the winter 1607-8, one in
1614-15, one in 1621-2. There were also three winters when
Russian ambassadors lay lieger in England; one in 1613-14, the
winter before the second frost, another in 1617, and the third in the
winter of the third frost in 1621-2, when the ambassador remained
at home, and did not go out in public till the spring. The author
ities for these dates are Stowe and the Continuations, Finett and
the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series. The date thus
arrived at is therefore irreconcilable with Mr Fleay's of 1611. But
he says we must not trust to this test, because the passage may have
been interpolated when the play was revived. No doubt you find
such interpolated passages in the old plays, but there are passages
which instinctively, as it were, commend themselves as original
portions of a play ; and this, I think, is one, nor does it show the
slightest appearance of being an addition.

Besides, there are two other arguments which go to confirm the
date as thus limited, and to confirm, therefore, the belief of non-
interpolation. The action of the play is in 1605, or just after the
siege of Ostend. In 1609 a truce or treaty was made for twelve
years, and at its expiry in 1621 Maurice, after notice given, recom-

DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. FLETCHER'S SPANISH PLAYS. 81

menced the war. But, at the very opening of the play, when Alvarez
returns to Spain after twenty years' exile, it is said he landed with
1 such a general welcome '

As if by his command alone and fortune
Holland with those Low Provinces that hold out
Against the Arch-Duke, were again compell'd
With their obedience to give up their lives
To be at his devotion.

And in another passage (i. 2) the steward says he will bring up a
son to take Grave Maurice prisoner. Now it is true that Fletcher
may have introduced these, remembering the action was in 1605,
but the reader of old English plays will, I think, judge it more
probable that these thoughts occurred to Fletcher, and were by him
put before an English audience, during a war, rather than during a
twelve years' peace.

This is a small argument, but the next is, I think, far stronger ;
and it is this, that though Fletcher knew Spanish, and took plots,
or parts of plots, from Cervantes and others, there is not a single
play prior to 1621, — unless this be an exception, — which has its scene
in Spain. The reason, of course, lay in the inveterate national
hatred. But about 1621 James was in favour of the Spanish match,
and in that year Charles went across to Spain to see his proposed
bride. It was therefore James' policy to change, or at least mitigate,
this national hatred, and to show that he did so ; and it was the
policy of the Court and courtiers to adopt the king's views, and
Fletcher was in favour at Court, and his plays were always played
there. Hence the sudden development of his Spanish plays. Before
1621 none; in 1621 The Pilgrim; in 1622 The Spanish Curate; in
1623 The Maid of the Mill; in 1624 Rule a Wife and Have a Wife,
and this appears to me to have been used, if not produced, to coun
teract Middleton's game at chess. Many may remember that this
was written expressly against the Spaniards, and, after three days of
overflowing houses, was stopped by authority. This was in August,
and in October Fletcher's play was produced with the prologue
lines : —

Nor to remembrance our late errors call,
Because this day we're Spaniards all again.

Lastly, James died in March, Fletcher in August, 1625, leaving
Lovers Pilgrimage unfinished, a Spanish piece evidently intended to
be played before the new queen. The allusion then to the Russian
ambassador, that to the Low Country wars, and the non-occurrence
of Spanish plays before 1621, and their then frequent occurrence,
all go to show that Love's Cure was produced about 1622 or 1623.
If this combined evidence cannot be got over, it will prove, with
the prologue, that Fletcher may have been assisted, either by some

TRANSACTIONS. 6

82 DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR SIMPSON ON FLETCHER'S METRE.

minor author, or by some very retiring author like Massinger, but
was not a co-partner with Beaumont.

MR SIMPSON wrote that he had read The Two Nob7e Kinsmen
carefully, and agreed with Mr Hickson and Mr Fleay in their
division of the Play ; he added, however, that though he considered
the general average of double endings to be the decisive criterion
between Shakspere and Fletcher where the comparison could be
made between a sufficient number of lines of each author, the test
scarcely applied to short passages, where, from some accidental
reason or whim, Shakspere might be prodigal, or Fletcher sparing,
of double endings. In one of Shakspere's sonnets (No. xx.) every
line has a double ending ; there may possibly exist passages of 14
lines together of Fletcher's without one such ending. Mr Simpson,
however, considers that the possibility, and in some cases the
necessity, of reading Fletcher's double-ended lines with the accent
of the Ecclesiastical Sapphic —

Ut queant laxis || resonare fibris,
or its English equivalent — •

Needy knife-grinder || how cam'st thou to grind knives —

is a most useful test of the Fletcher rhythm. Specimens may
be multiplied, e. g. in Henry VIII., v. 5,

When she has so much | English.

Let me speak, sir.

For heaven now bids me [ And the words I utter. . . .
This royal infant | heav'n still move about her. . .
God shall be truly known ; and those about her
From her shall read the perfect ways of honour.

In The Two Noble Kinsmen, II. 2,

fruit

Fit for the Gods to feed on ; youth and pleasure
Still as she tasted, should be doubled on her ;
And, if she be not heavenly, I would make her
So near the Gods in nature, they should fear her.

See also the passages of Fletcher quoted pp. 68 and 69 of Mr
Fleay's papers. In the first, in nine lines we have three Sapphica :

Coloured with smooth excuses ; Was't a friend's part. . . .

CalTd him aloud, and led him to his fortune 1 . . .

I would have given my life I'd never known thee. . . .

In the second, of seven lines and a half, two are Sapphic :

Oh let me thus embrace you, thus for ever. . . .
Blessings from heaven in thousand showers fall on you.

DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. MR HALES ON FLETCHER'S PHILASTER. 83

The application of this test leads one to think (1) that Fletcher
interpolated the third line of the play (Two Noble Kinsmen),

" And as you wish your womb may thrive with fair ones ; "

and (2) that the speeches of Arcite in Act I. sc. 2 are Shakspere's,
and not Fletcher's, as Mr Hickson contends, although they do
contain rather over the Shaksperian average of double-ended lines.

MR J. W. HALES : — The only play that I have looked at
with special regard to these tests has been Philaster, and I think
the result is satisfactory. I think also that the value of these tests
in casting light on what has been one of the most perplexing
questions in literature, — the respective geniuses of Beaumont and
Fletcher — may be considerable. There is a well-known tradition,
first found perhaps in Fuller,1 that Beaumont was remarkable for his
great judgment, and Fletcher for the nimbleness of his fancy ; and
this tradition is now made better capable of verification.

There is just one mistake in Mr Fleay's assignment of Philaster.
He assigns to Fletcher the third scene of the fifth act. Now, that is
a composite scene, partly in prose and partly in verse. The verse
part is probably Fletcher's, but the prose part of it surely is Beau
mont's. Mr Fleay himself points out in several places that Fletcher
never admits prose into any work distinctly his own, whereas Dion
and the King in that particular scene both speak in prose. This
mistake may be a mere misprint. It certainly suggests that the list
should be carefully revised.

There is a passage that I should like specially to recommend as
a specimen of Fletcher's metrical style, because it contains all his
leading characteristics, viz. (1) the extra syllable, about which so
much has been said ; (2) the treble ending (and I should like very
much to ask, with regard to Mr Fleay's tables, whether what he so
commonly calls Alexandrines are not frequently lines with treble end
ings 1) ; (3) what is perhaps a still more striking characteristic of
Fletcher's lines, his giving the llth syllable a full accent — a habit
which completely alters the colour and complexion of the verse.
The passage I refer to is the first scene of the second act of the
False One, when Caesar speaks —

" I have heard too much ;
And study not with smooth shows to invade
My noble mind as you have done my conquest.

1 In Fuller's Worthies, ii. 513, ed. 1840: "He [Fletcher] had an excellent
wit which the back friends to stage plays will say, was neither idle nor well
employed ; for he and Francis Beaumont esquire, like* Castor and Pollux
(most happy when in conjunction) raised the English to equal the Athenian
and Roman theatre ; Beaumont bringing the ballast of judgment, Fletcher the
sail of phantasy • both compounding a poet to admiration."

84 DISCUSSION. MARCH 27. A SPECIMEN OF FLETCHER'S STYLE.

Ye are poor and open ; I must tell you roundly,

That man that could not recognise the benefits,

The great and bounteous services of Pompey,

Can never dote upon the name of Caesar.

Though I had hated Pompey, and allowed his ruin,

I gave you no commission to perform it.

Hasty to please in blood are seldom trusty ;

And but I stand environ'd with my victories,

My fortune never failing to befriend me,

My noble strengths and friends about my person,

I durst not try you, nor expect a courtesy

Above the pious love you shew'd to Pompey.

You have found me merciful in arguing with ye ;

Swords, hangmen, fires, destructions of all natures,

Demolishments of kingdoms, and whole ruins,

Are wont to be my orators. Turn to tears,

You wretched and poor seeds of sunburnt Egypt ;

And now you have found the nature of a conqueror,

That you cannot decline with all your flatteries,

That when the day gives light will be himself still,

Know how to meet his worth with humane courtesies.

Go and embalm those bones of that great soldier ;

Howl round about his pile, fling on your spices,

Make a Sabsean bed, and place this phcenix

Where the hot sun may emulate his virtues,

And draw another Pompey from his ashes

Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the worthies."

85

III. ON THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE TAMING
OF THE SHREW.

BY THE KEY. F. G. FLEAY, M.A.

(Read at the third Meeting of the Society, April 24, 1874 : revised, June 5.)

THERE is something in the first aspect of this play so different
from the generality of Shakspere's work as to have long since
excited suspicion as to its authorship. Mr Hallam, for instance,
quotes, apparently with approval, Mr Collier's opinion, that Shakspere
had nothing to do with any of the scenes in which Katherine and
Petruchio are not introduced. In support of this opinion many
general considerations may be urged ; e. g.

1. It does not occur in Meres's list; and, as Meres mentions
every undoubted play that is at all likely to have been written by
Shakspere before 1598, and even includes Titus Andronicus, which
has been given up by every critic whose opinion is of importance on
these questions, it is very unlikely that he should have omitted this
one, and this only.

2. This is the only instance of a play with an Induction, so as to
form a play within a play, in all Shakspere's work ; and this In
duction is most clumsily managed : there is no provision for getting
Sly off the stage. Shakspere could never have been guilty of this
blunder, especially as the old play, The Taming of a Shrew, winds
up satisfactorily in this respect.

3. There is no other Comedy of Shakspere's, except the Merry
Wives, in which there is not a Duke or King ; and in which all the
characters are taken from the middle classes. The tone of this work
is quite sui generis in this respect.

4. As Hazlitt remarks : " This is almost the only one of Shak-
spere's comedies which has a regular plot and downright moral." I
would rather omit the " almost," and add that no work of Shakspere's

86 III. AUTHORSHIP OF THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

is so narrow in feeling, so restricted in purpose, so unpleasing in
general tone.

5. This play was made a special object of ridicule by Fletcher in
his Woman's Prize, or the Tamer Tamed : the date of this latter play
is uncertain, but it lies between 1616 and 1621, probably nearer the
former date than the latter. Now, would Fletcher have chosen for
ridicule a work by his friend, whom he admired and respected, and
that, too, within three or four years at most of his friend's death, not
long after he had been remodelling his Henry VIII. , and working
with him in the Two Noble Kinsmen ? But we have much stronger
arguments than these general ones ; to which we now pass on.

I. Argument from Metrical peculiarities.

The irregular lines in this play fall into several well-defined
classes.

1. There are lines deficient by a whole measure or foot.
Examples : — •

i. 1, 51. I pray you, sir, is it your will.

ii. 1, 259. Go, fool, and whom thou keepst, command.

ii. 1, 300. I'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first.

iii. 2, 185. Hark, hark, I hear the minstrels play,

iii. 2, 233. My household stuff, my field, my barn,

iv. 1, 164. ;Tis burnt, and so is all the meat,

iv. 4, 46. The match is made, and all is done.

v. 2, 66. Let's each one send unto his wife.

2. There are lines deficient by a syllable in some part of the line
marked A in the following examples : —

i.l, 14. Vincentio's son brought up in Florence A

i. 2, 190. No ; say'st me so A friend ? What countryman ?

i. 2, 251. Sir, let me be so bold as ask A you.

ii. 1, 73. Beccare ! you are marvellous A forward.

iii. 2, 168. What said the wench when A he rose again ?

iv. 1, 124. Where be these knaves? What no man at A door.

iv. 3, 30. Why, then, the mustard A without the beef.

iv. 3, 62. Lay forth the gown ! What news with you, sir A ?

iv. 4, 33. No worse than I A upon some agreement.

iv. 4, 34. Me shall you find ready and willing A .

iv. 4, 55. Then at my lodging, an it like you A .

3. There are lines in which one syllable constitutes the first
measure.

III. AUTHORSHIP OF THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 87

Examples : — •

i. 1, 48. Gentlemen, imporjune me no farther,
i. 1, 73. Well said, master ! Mum, and gaze your fill.
i. 1, 74. Gentlemen, that I may soon make good.
i. 1, 90. Gentlemen, content ye ! I'm resolved.
i. 2, 160. O this learning, what a thing it is !
i. 2, 161. O this woodcock, what an ass it is !
i. 2, 198. Will he woo her ? Ay, or I will (He, F.) hang her.
i. 2. 247. What! this gent'man will out-talk us all.
ii. 1, 109. Sirrah, lead these gent'men to my daughters.

If the Globe arrangement be taken the line is still worse, viz.
To my daugh'ters and tell them both.

ii. 1, 202. No such jade as you, if me you mean,
iii. 2, 89. Come, where be these gallants ? Who's at home 1
iii. 2, 92. Were it better I should rush in thus ?

[Lines 130 and 132 have both been plausibly emended. I therefore
do not quote them.]

iv. 1, 150. Out, you rogue ! You pluck my foot awry.

iv. 1, 163. What's this? Mutton? Ay. Who brought it ? I.

iv. 2, 120. Go with me to clothe you as becomes you.

iv. 4, 2. Ay, what else, and but I be deceived.

iv. 4, 71. Come, Sir, we will better it in Pisa.

v. 2, 38. How likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?

v. 2, 40. Head and butt : a hasty-witted body.

v. 2, 93. Not quoted ; pronounce " wor'se " (r vocal).

Ind. 2, 114. Madam wife, they say that I have dream'd.

4. There are lines of six measures, with the first measure
monosyllabic.

Examples : —

iv. 1, 153. Where's my spaniel, Troilus ? Sirrha, get you hence 1
iv. 2, 4. Sir, to satisfy you in what I have said.
iv. 2, 11. Quick proceeders, marry ! Now tell me, I pray,
iv. 2, 33. Never to marry with her, though she would entreat.

(1st foot 2 syll. but no cesura.)
i. 2, 194. 0 sir, such a life, with such a wife, were strange.

5. The doggerel lines are chiefly of four measures in each line.
Examples : —

i. 1, 68. Hush, master, here's some good pastime toward !

The wench is stark mad or wonderful fro ward.
i. 2, 11. Villain, I say, knock me at the gate ;

And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate.
i. 2, 16. Faith, sirrha, an you'll not knock I'll ring it,

I'll try how you can sol fa and sing it.

88 III. AUTHORSHIP OF THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

The doggerel in Love's Labour Lost, Comedy of Errors, &c., has
either five or six measures in each line ; and lines like these of four
measures occur nowhere else in Shakspere.

6. There are many rhymes of one or two measures in each line
introduced in the midst of the dialogue.

Examples : —

i. 1, 79. Put ginger in the eye,

An she knew why.
iii. 1, 83. Nay, by S. Jamy,

I hold you a penny,
A horse and a mon
Is more than one,
And yet not many,
iv. 1, 6. Little pot,

And soon hot.

iv. 4, 101. And so may you, Sir ;
And so adieu, Sir 1

These peculiarities of metre are enough of themselves to show
that the greater part of this play is not Shakspere's. On the lines
that are deficient by a syllable or a measure I do not lay great stress,
since similar instances occur, though in much smaller number, in
Shakspere's undoubted plays. But when we find over 20 lines in
which the first measure consists of one syllable ; and, on looking
into the other plays, find that 12 instances at most can be alleged
from the whole of them, and that these 12 are in every instance
explicable on other principles, then the fact that the metrical scheme
of this play differs entirely from the Shaksperian, becomes manifest.
In fact, the average of such lines in Shakspere is (if none of them
be corrupt, which is extremely unlikely) less than one in two plays.

The peculiar anapaestic doggerel lines with four measures, and
the frequent occurrence of short rhymes in proverbial or quasi-
proverbial sayings in the dialogue, confirm the conclusion reached
above. Still more does the occurrence of lines of six measures, the
first one being monosyllabic : not one instance of such a line can be
adduced from the undoubted plays.

The frequent contraction of the word " Gentlemen " into " Gent'-
men " in this play is also noticeable ; it occurs,

i. 2, 219. Gent'men, God save you ! If I may be bold,
ii. 1, 47. I am a gent'man of Verona, Sir.

III. AUTHORSHIP OP THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 89

ii. 1, 328. Faith, gent'men, now I play a merchant's part.
ii. 1, 343. Content you, gent'men : I'll compound this strife.
iii. 1, 185. Gent'men and friends, I thank you for your pains.
i. 2, 247. What ! this gent'man will out-talk us all.
ii. 1, 109. Sirrah, lead these gent'men to my daughters !

II. Argument from the use of Latin quotations and classical
allusions.

Latin quotations are introduced in Henry VI., Titus Andronicus,
the first two acts of Pericles, the parts of Timon which I have
shown elsewhere not to be Shakspere's, and in this play. In the
whole 33 of Shakspere's undoubted plays after Love's Labour's Lost,
the only Latin quotation I can remember is, " Cucullus non facit
monachum," and this he uses twice.

The manner of introducing classical allusions is not Shaksperian.

Compare

i. 1, 173. I saw sweet beauty in her face,

Such as the daughter of Agenor had,
That made great Jove to humble him, &c.,

with

M. V., iii. 2, 244. We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.

as fair typical instances.
So,

i. 1, 159. as secret and as dear

As Anna to the Queen of Carthage was.

This manner of introducing such comparisons is found in Henry
VI., 3rd part, often ; but never in Shakspere's undoubted plays.
For example, Henry VL, (3) v. 2, 19.

As Utysses and stout Diomede,
With slight and manhood stole to Rhesus tents,
And brought from thence the fatal Thracian steed,
So we, &c.

III. Argument from the use of words not occurring in Shakspere's
undoubted plays.

List of words not occurring in any other play attributed to
Shakspere : —

90

III. AUTHORSHIP OF THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

i. 1, 20 Specially.
23 Plash.

31 Stoics.

32 Devote.
34 Balk logic.

37 (& ii. 1, 83, 56) Ma
thematics.

64 Comb.

37 Metaphy sicks.

77 Peat.
110 Dough.

113 Wish = recommend.
137 High-cross.
159 Anna.

1 70 Longly = longingly.
173 Agenor.
182 Trance.
203 Basta.

Quotations, &c.

37 Mi perdonata, &c.
167 Kedimete, &c.

i. 2, 7 Kebused.
33 Pip.

64 Wish (recommend).
69 Florentius.
71 Socrates.
71 Xantippe.
74 Adriatic (from
race).

79 Aglet.

80 Trot = old hag.
112 Ropetricks.

1 34 Seen = learned.
138 Here's no knavery !

i. 2, 207 Clang.

276 Contrive=spend, wear

out.
26 'leges.

Quotations, &c.
282 Ben venuto.

23 Con tutto, Ac.

24 Alia nostra, &c.

ii. 1, 56, 83 Mathematics.

73 Baccare.
125 Widowhood.
265 Mother-wit.
273 Will you, nill you.

But will he, nill he,

in Ham.
308 Incredible.
315 Meacock.
Curstest.
297 Grissel.
353 Counterpoints.
355 Boss'd
189 Superdainty.
341 Skipper.
350 Ewer.

iii. 1, 18 Breeching.

19 (cf. iii. 2, 1) 'pointed.
Ho- 50 Pedascule.

52 ^Eacides.
68 Pithy.
73, &c. Gamut.

Quotation.
29 Hie ibat, &c.

III. AUTHORSHIP OF THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

91

iii. 2, 1 'pointed.
15 'point.
45, &c. Candle-cases.

Chapeless.

Hipped.

Mothy.

Glanders.

Mose.

Lampass.

Windgalls.

Velure.

Studs.

103 Eyesore.
156 Curator.
162 Gog's-wouns.
174 Muscadel.
250 Junkets.

iv. 1, 3 'rayed.

78 Bemoil'd.

160 Elap-ear'd.

160 Beetle-headed.

166 Dresser.

215 Coverlet.

121 Cock's passion.

136 Unpink'd.

138 Sheathing.

iv. 2, 20 Cullion.
61 Engle.
63 Mercatante.
57 Eleven-and- twenty.

iv 3, 20 Tripe.

iv. 3, 64 Porringer.

66 Walnut-shell.
82 Custard coffin.
88 Demi-cannon.
90 Slish.
153 Meteyard.
184 Frolic (verb), once
adj. in Shakspere,

iv. 4, 59 Scrivener.
61 Pittance.
93 Cum privilegio, &c.
101 Parsley.

iv. 5,

None.

v. 1, 46 Crack hemp.
68 Copatain.
77 'cerns.
134 Slit.
145 Dough.

v. 2, 79 Halves.

98 Holidame.

Induction.

sc. 1, 9 Jeronimy

13 Third borough.

56 Rosewater.

57 Diaper.
57 Ewer.

sc. 2, 5 Conserves (noun).
44 Studded.
90 Jugs.
119 Undress.

92

III. AUTHORSHIP OF THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

N.B. 'Lying'st knave in Christendom,' Induction 2, 25, is
taken from 2 Henry VI. , ii. 1.

List of words used in the Taming of the Shrew, and occurring
also in other plays wrongly ascribed to Shakspere : —

i. 1, 8 Institute,
33 Outcast,
i. 2, 70 Sibyl,
200 Daunt,

ii. 1, 339 Youngling,

350 Basin,

351 Tyrian,
hi. 2, 51 Chine,

155 Grumbling,

iv. 1, 77 Miry,

93 Combed,

iv. 3, 36 Amort,
65 Cockle,

iv. 4, 49 Affied,

v. 1, 28 Frivolous,
Induction, i. 55 Basin,
2, 52 Adonis,
40 Lustful,

41 Semiramis

1 Hen. VI., iv. 1.

2 Hen. VI., v. 1.
T. A., iv. 1.

1 Hen. VI., v. 3.

2 Hen. VL, iii. 1 ; iv. 1.
T. A., i. 2.

T. A., ii. 1 ; iv. 2.
T. A., v. 2.
Tim., iii. 1.
Per., v. (Gower).
2 Hen. VL, iv. 1.
Hen. VIII., v. 3.

2 Hen. VL, i. 3.

3 Hen. VL, i. 4.
T. A., iii. 1.

2 Hen. VL, iii. 3.

1 Hen. VL, iii. 2.
Per., iv. 4.

2 Hen. VL, iv. 1.
T. A., i. 1.

1 Hen. VL, iv. 1.
cf. ii. 1, 350.
1 Hen. VL, i. 6.

3 Hen. VL, iii. 2.
1 Hen. VL, iii. 2.
T. A., iv. 2.

and once in Othello.
T. A., ii. 1 ; ii. 3.

From the above lists it is clear that 130 words are used in this
play which are not used in the undoubted plays ; an enormous num
ber when we consider that Shakspere's is the largest vocabulary

III. AUTHORSHIP OF THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 93

known to be used by any single author. He uses in his undoubted
plays about 14,000 words. The Taming of the Shrew is in length
about ^ part of his complete works ; and if each of his plays had as
many words peculiar to itself as this play has, more than £ of his
whole vocabulary would consist of words that occur in one play
only.

Moreover, many of these special Shrew words are common ones ;
ewe», basin, coverlet, parsley, tripe, dough, banns,1 mathematics :
words which one cannot understand Shakspere's not using, unless he
persistently and designedly used some other synonymous words for
them. Again, of these words more than 20 do occur in the other
doubtful plays, and these are not confined to common words ; but
include such as ' arnort, affied, youngling,' which are not common
enough to be expected more than once in so small a number of
plays. Consider, for instance, the word ' any.' It occurs in Henry
VI., in Titus Andronicus, and in this play ; it is clearly a favourite
word with the writer ; yet in the 30 undoubted plays of Shakspere
it never occurs. Then consider that there are 20 words in a like
predicament ; and the probability that this play is not Shakspere's
in the main becomes so strong, that until some one can show that
one of his admitted plays exhibits similar phenomena, I must regard
this foregoing argument as unanswerable.

But the most remarkable and conclusive phenomenon has yet to
be noticed : all the above peculiarities — the lines with monosyllabic
initial measures, the classical allusions, the doggerel rhymes, the use
of unshaksperian words — all alike disappear in certain portions of the
play, notably in the last scenes of the 4th and 5th acts, and in
portions of previous scenes, e. g. of iv. 3 ; ii. 1. But these parts of
the play are those in which Katherine and Petruchio are on the stage
together : they are just the parts which any critical reader would
pick out as far superior to the rest ; they are, in fact, the very salt of
the whole. I feel justified therefore in concluding that the only
characters in this play which have Shakspere's handiwork in them

1 I have since found this word in King Lear ; the passage is not given in
Mrs Cowden Clarke. (Act v. p. 3, 1. 88.) I have no doubt there are other
errors : the list is made entirely from her Concordance.

94 III. AUTHORSHIP OF THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

are the two principal ones, Katherine and Petruchio ; and that to
quote this play in proof or illustration of any peculiarities of Shak
spere's metrical system, or otherwise, is decidedly unsafe. Dr Abbott,
for instance, seems to have formed some erroneous notions of the
metrical system of Shakspere, from relying too much on the doubtful
plays, if one may judge by the number of times he quotes them to
support his theories.1 It also follows that the early date assigned to
this play, chiefly founded on its inferiority, need not be, and, as I
think, is not accurate. In fact, nothing is more dangerous than
assigning dates to authors' works by their supposed excellence of
execution, or the contrary. Nothing is more safe than a conclusion
founded on the manner of work, where the author shows develop
ment of style in his productions ; nothing less sure than inferences
from the matter, or the relative value of it.

Thus far, then, our work has been destructive ; but I feel bound
to give a theory (at any rate) plausible as to the composition of the
play. Now, first I would notice, that although it is certainly
inferior to Shakspere's Comedies of the second period, the inferiority
does not consist in immaturity, but in comparative want of genius.
It is the work of a second-rate author at his best, not of our greatest
author in his youth. Any one who reads it without a preconceived
notion that it is Shakspere's, will, I am certain, agree as to this point.
Now, remembering how this notion of inferiority being necessarily asso
ciated with early date has led critics astray, inducing them to group
Titus Andronicus, Pericles, and Two Gentlemen of Verona, as pro
ductions of the same period, although three plays more different in
stylej in handling, and in metre could not be found, I will not say
in Shakspere, but in all the Elizabethan drama ; remembering this,
let us throw aside all prejudice, and look into the metre of the scenes
that I believe are Shakspere's, especially the last in the play. We
shall find that the per centage of double endings in this scene, the
number of rhymes, and the general tone of the rhythm as to caesura
and stopped lines, coincide with the plays at the end of the second

r.' * '

1 Since I wrote the above, my attention has been called to the following
words in Dr Abbott's Shalwsperian Grammar, Par. 505, " the frequent recur
rence of these lines in the Taming of the Shrew will not escape notice," re
cognizing the difference between this play and Shakspere's general style.

III. AUTHORSHIP OP THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 95

period, with As You Like It and Much Ado about Nothing: and point
to a date of 1601 or 1602. Now, in the Taming of the Shreio there
is a line

This is the way to kill a wife with kindness,

which distinctly refers to Heywood's play of A woman killed with
kindness, which dates 1600, being this author's earliest production.
I would therefore assign the Taming of the Shrew to 1600-01, and
explain its form in some such way as this. It was written by some
one on the model of the older play, and generally in a satisfactory
manner ; but the ending being found unsatisfactory, Shakspere was
desired to furnish some alterations, which he did ; but the play
wright who interwove these in the drama, cut out the ending of the
play as it stood, together with the end of the Induction, not noticing
that Sly was then left undisposed of ; and the ending in Shakspere's
scene was so satisfactory, that it was not found advisable to meddle
with it afterwards. This will explain the absence from Meres's list,
and all the other phenomena which appear at first so inexplicable.
I might adduce other arguments to confirm the above ; for instance,
the extreme unlikelihood that Fletcher should in 1618, or there
abouts, choose a play to ridicule that had been published at least 25
years, if the ordinary theory is correct ; or the much stronger argu
ment, that if there is any truth in metrical tests, there is no place
whatever in which this play can be introduced into any scheme of
development of Shakspere's metrical system. The number of rhymes
would place it at the end of the first period, after Midsummer Night's
Dream and Romeo and Juliet ; but its other metrical peculiarities,
as noticed above, would not fit into any part of the plays of any
period.

I may add that if this theory be the right one — and I fuel
rather confident it is — it brings the date of the play just to the time
when Shakspere's mind was busied in re-organizing his Love's Labour
Won, and his Troylus and Cressida, previously to his turning his
attention from Comedy to Tragedy, to which he devoted all his
energy up to the last year of his dramatic life.

In order finally to impress on the memory the differences of

96 SHAKSPBBE, AND NOT-SHAKSPERE BITS IN THE SHREW.

style in the Shakspere parts of this play and in the other portions,
compare the following passages, the most characteristic I can find in
the play.

Fie, fie, uuknit that threat'ning unkinde brow,

And dart not scornfull glances from those eies,

To wound thy Lord, thy King, thy Governour.

It blots thy beautie as frosts doe bite the mead,

Confounds thy fame, as whirle winds shake faire buddsr

And in no sence is meete or amiable.

A woman mou'd is like a fountaine troubled,

Muddie, ill-seeming, thicke, bereft of beautie,

And while it is so, none so dry or thirstie,

Will daigne to sip, or touch one drop of it.

Act v. Sc. 1. (Shakspere.)

Tranio, since for the great desire I had

To see faire Padua, nurserie of Arts,

I am arriu'd from fruitfull Lombardie,

The pleasant garden of great Italy,

And by my father's loue and leaue am arm'd

With his good will and thy good companie,

My trustie seruant, well approu'd in all,

Here let us breath and haply institute

A course of learning and ingenious studies.

Act i. Sc. 1. (Not Shakspere.)

Oh, monstrous arrogance :

Thou lyest, thou thred, thou thimble,

Thou yard, three-quarter, half-yard, quarter, naile,

Thou Flea, thou Nit, thou winter cricket thou :

Brau'd in mine owne house with a skeine of thred :

Away, thou rag, thou quantitie, thou remnant,

Or I shall so bemete thee with thy yard

As thou shalt think on prating while thou liu'st.

Act iv. Sc. 3. (? Shakspere.)

SHAKSPERE, AND NOT-SHAKSPERE BITS IN THE SHRKW.

97

Hor. Sir, a word ere you go.

Are you a sutor to the Maid you talke of, yea or no ?

Tra. And if I be, Sir, is it any offence ?

Gre. No : if without more words you will get you hence.

Tra. Why, Sir, I pray, are not the streets as free
For me as for you 1

Gre. But so is not she.

Tra. For what reason, I beseech you1?

Gre. For this, Sir, if you'll know,

That she's the choise lone of Signior Gremio.

Act i. Sc. 2. (Not Shakspere.)

For 'tis the minde that makes the bodie rich,

And as the sunne breakes through the darkest clouds,

So honor peereth in the meanest habit.

What, is the Jay more precious than the Larke,

Because his feathers are more beautifull ?

Or is the Adder better than the Eele,

Because his painted skin contents the eye 1

Oh no, good Kate ; neither art thou the worse

For this poore furniture and meane array.

Act iv. Sc. 3. (Not Shakspere.;

Be she as foul as was Florentius lone,

As old as Sibell, and as curst and shrow'd

As Socrates, Zentippe, or a worse ;

She moues me not, or not remoues at least

Affections edge in me. Were she as rough

As are the swelling Adriaticke seas,

I come to wiue it wealthily in Padua.

If wealthily, then happily in Padua.

Act i. Sc. 2. (Not Shakspere.)

Such dutie as the subject owes the Prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband :
And when she is fro ward, peeuish, sullen, soure,

TRANSACTIONS. 7

98

LIST OP UN-SHAKSPERIAN WORDS IN TITUS.

And not obedient to his honest will,

What is she but a foul, unbending Rebell,

And gracelesse Traitor to her louing Lord ]

I am ashamed that women are so simple

To offer warre when they should kneele for peace,

Or seek for rule, supremacie, and sway,

When they are bound to serue, loue, and obay.

Act v. Sc. 2.

(Shakspere.)

APPENDIX.

LIST of words occurring in Titus Andronicus ; but not in the
undoubted plays of Shakspere.

i. 1, 47 Any.

48 Uprightness.

75 Eesalute.

98 Ad manes, &c.
100 Unappeased.
151 Readiest.
170 Triumpher.
177 Solon.
182 Palliament.
185 Candidatus.
228 Elect.
242, 333, Panther.
243 Doth this motion

please thee?
268 Daunt.
280 Suum cuique.
308 Reproachful.
325 Hymenaeus.
350 Sumptuously.
350 Re-edified.
398 Remunerate.

391 Dreary.
408 Meanwhile.
483 Entreats (noun)
493 Panther.

ii. 1, 17 Prometheus.
22 Semiramis.
24 Shipwreck.
43 Meanwhile.
54 Reproachful.
73 Youngling.
87 Loaf.
87 Shive.
32 Sit fas, &c.
135 Per Styga, &c.

ii. 2, 21 Panther.

ii. 3,

11 Gleeful.

13 Rolled.

15 Checkered.

20 Yelping.

34 Uncurls.

LIST OF UN-SHAKSPERIAN WORDS IN TITUS.

99

37 Venereal.
72 Cimmerian.
75 Sequestered.
83 Raven-coloured.
83 'joy.

92 'ticed.

95 Miseltoe.

109 Adulteress (4 syll.).

118 Semiramis. iv. 2,

141 Unrelenting.

191 Spleenful.

194 Panther.

224 Blood-drinking.

236 Cocytus.

222 Embrued.

ii. 4, 38 Philomela.

iii. 1, 19 Drouth.

96 Brinish.

65 Faint-hearted.

69 Faggot.

90 Unrecurring.

126 Miry.

169 Battle-axe.

259 Numb.

iii. 2, 4 Sorrow-wreathen.

38 Meshed (brewing).

44 Alphabet.

45 Still ( = constant).
50 Sapling.

85 Dazzle (intransitive).

iv. 1, 11 Somewhither.

14 Tully. v. 2,

42 Metamorphosis.
52 Philomela.

iv. 3,

iv. 4,

78 Stuprum.

79 Lustful (once, Othello).
81 Mag?ii, &c.

89 Fere.

91 Junius Brutus.

96 Bear-whelp.
103 Gad.
105 Sybil (prophetess).

20 Integer vitcv, &c.
23 Grammar.
65 Joyless.
72 Blowze.
93 Youngling.

93 Enceladtis.

94 Typhon.
115 Ignominy.
123 Self-blood.
146 Weke.
161 Dandle.
178 Whey.

22 Unsearched.
71 Aries.
105 Meanwhile.

4 Egal.

5 Mightful.
31 Scarred.

v. 1, 51 Sprawl.

76 Popish.

99 Codding.
104 Guileful.
114 Crevice.

32 Wreakful.
46 'surance.
59, &c. Rapine.

100 III. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO THE SHREW.

89 Represent. 90 Oratory

189 Coffin (pasty). 113 Sheathing.

184 Bason. 122 Architect.

196 Progne. m Execrable.

v. 3, 6 Sustenance. 199 Devoid.

37, 50 Virginias. 204 Euinate (verb).

Sorrowful occurs four times in this play, only once in Shakspere.

P.S. The lists given in this paper of peculiar words are only
preliminary to my paper on Henry VI. ; in which the whole question
of " once-used" words is thoroughly discust, and the method of
using them in discriminating authorship is laid down in detail.

Hereupon follows my division of The Taming of the Shrew into
Shaksperian and non-Shaksperian portions, with the results of the
rhyme-test as applied to each. I was unable, from pressure of
work, to get this done in time for the reading of the paper ; but it
was forwarded to the Director the day after. Nothing more is, I
think, needful to confirm Dr Farmer's theory as to the authorship,
and Mr Collier's as to the date, of this play. These gentlemen have
laid down their views too distinctly to need enlarging on : distinctly
enough, indeed, for more recent writers to appropriate and reproduce
them, too often without acknowledgment.

METRICAL TABLE.

SHAKSPERE.

Total
lines.

Verse
lines.

Rhyme
lines.

Ratio of
rhyme to verse.

ii. 1. 168—326

156

156

2

78

iii. 2. a. c.

233

187

7

27

iv. 1.

224

102

6

17

3.

198

159

6

26-5

5.

78

78

4

19-5

v. 2. 1—175

175

175

10

17-5

Total

1064

857

35

24

III. METRICAL TESTS APPLIED TO THE SHREW. 101

SECOND AUTHOR.

Total
lines.

Verse
lines.

Rhyme
lines.

Ratio of
rhyme to verse.

i. 1.

253

227

18

12-6

2.

282

250

51

5

ii. 1. a. G.

413

247

14

17-6

iii. 1.

92

74

12

6-1

2. 129—150

21

21

2

10-5

iv. 2.

120

120

8

15

4.

109

79

6

13-1

v. 1.

155

33

18

1-8

2. 176—189

14

14

14

1

Total 1449 1065 143 7-4

The Induction (? Shakspere's) is rhymeless, evidently with inten
tion, just as the play in Hamlet is rhymed : to distinguish the play
within the play. This is very characteristic of Shakspere. The
rhyme-ratio of rhyme to verse, 1 to 24 ; that is, of rhyme to blank,
1 to 23 ; places this play in 1602 : exactly where I anticipated it
would come, for other reasons : it comes at the extreme end of the
second period along with Twelfth Night and As You Like It. (See
my paper on Twelfth Night.) The difference of the ratios in the
Shakspere and other parts of the play (7*4 and 24) is so great as to
distinctly show the value of the rhyme-test in determining the
authorship when properly used.

F. G. FLEAY.

102

DISCUSSION ON THIRD PAPER. SHREW.
April 24, 1874.

MR FURNIVALL : — We have to-night to deal with one of those
early semi-spurious plays attributed to Shakspere ; and that is a very
different question indeed to dealing with the late doubtful plays,
such as Pericles and Timon, which we shall have to approach next
meeting; or The Two Noble Kinsmen and Henry VIII. , with which
Mr Hickson and Mr Spedding have dealt in the Papers which have
been given out to you in the Appendix to Part I. of our Transactions.
When Shakspere's style was fully developt, there really is not much
difficulty in any earnest student with moderate critical faculty pick
ing out what is Shakspere's in his full power, from a mixture of his
and anybody else's work. And I feel confident that, after reading
the papers by Mr Hickson and Mr Spedding given out already, and
those by Mr Fleay on Pericles and Timon given out to-night, there
will be extremely little doubt remaining in any of your minds as to
the plays having been rightly divided, and his parts in them rightly
assignd to Shakspere. But when we approach the early plays, the
difficulty is much greater, at least at first sight ; for we are met by
the probability of the scholar writing in his master's style. As
Raffaelle at first copied Perugino, as Beethoven imitated Mozart, so,
no doubt, Shakspere, coming up to London, and finding Marlowe,
Greene, and Peele, in possession of the stage, would be inclined to
copy them at first ; and thus one has more hesitation in attempting
to decide what is the work of Shakspere's hand in the early semi-
spurious plays. Still, if Mr Fleay's date of 1601 is right for The
Shrew, one would not have the same hesitation as in dealing with
Shakspere's earlier toucht-up plays — Titus Andronicus (bits in it
should be his), Henry VI. and Richard III. (all the women's rant
in which I hope Shakspere didn't write).

Nevertheless, Mr Fleay must have felt this hesitation, for you
will notice that there is in his Paper to-night but little of the firm
dividing hand which he showd in his Beaumont-and-Fletcher Paper,
which Mr Hickson and Mr Spedding showd so long ago in their
Kinsmen and Henry VIII. Papers. Instead of carrying us for
ward in our knowledge of the authorship of The Shrew, Mr Fleay
seems to me to draw us back ; he drops that most racy Induction,
does not contrast The Shrew with A Shrew, shows us but two hands
instead of three in the play, — except by hasty reference, — and in his
lists of words mixes up the vocabulary of all three writers. Now, long

DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. MR GRANT WHITE ON THE SHREW. 103

ago (1857) Mr Grant White, in his Introduction to his edition of The
Shrew, said that there are distinctly three hands to be recognized in
the play : first, that of the writer of The Taming of A Shrew, the old
play on which Shakspere's farce was founded, and then the hands of
Shakspere and his fellow-worker, or at any rate the person whose
work Shakspere toucht-up :

" In The Taming of the Shrew three hands at least are traceable ; that of
the author of the old play, that of Shakespeare himself, and that of a co-
labourer. The first appears in the structure of the plot, and in the incidents
and the dialogue of most of the minor scenes ; to the last must be assigned
the greater part of the love-business between Bianca and her two suitors ;
while to Shakespeare belong the strong clear characterization, the delicious
humour, and the rich verbal colouring of the recast Induction, and all tho
scenes in which Katharine and Petruchio and Grumio are the prominent
figures, together with the general effect produced by scattering lines and words
and phrases here and there, and removing others elsewhere, throughout the
rest of the play."1 (quoted in Dyce, 2nd ed., 1866, iii. 102-3.)

[P.S. Note that Mr Fleay has quoted Mr Collier's view "that
Shakspere had nothing to do with any of the scenes in which
Katharine and Petruchio are not introduced " from Hallam, without
verifying the extract. The statement Mr Collier really made is this,
— in his History of Dramatic Poetry, iii. 78, ed. 1831 :—

" I am however satisfied, that more than one hand (perhaps at
distant dates) was concerned in it, and that Shakspere had little to
do with any of the scenes in which Katherine and Petruchio are not
engaged." 2

This view, however, Mr Collier practically withdrew, as he did
not reproduce it in either his 1st or 2nd editions of Shakspere's
Works (in 1844 and 1858), but only said that the plot of The Shrew
was obtained from The Taming of A Shrew, and " that Shakspere
(in coalition possibly with some other dramatist who wrote the
portions which are admitted not to be in Shakspere's manner) pro
duced his Taming of the Shrew soon after Patient Grissill had
been brought upon the stage in 1599," ii. 440; and again, "it is

1 Many of Mr Grant White's Introductions are extremely good, and show
far more independence and freshness than certain ones of the ordinary English
type.

2 P.S. On Mr Fleay 's assertion in The Athenaum of May 30, 1874, p. 732,
" (1) that Mr Grant White added nothing whatever to the theory originally
proposed by Mr Collier," the extracts above are the best comment. Of Mr
Fleay's equally astonishing statement " (2) that Mr Grant White omitted a
main part of Mr Collier's view, namely, that the play was not produced till
1600-1," the following extract from Mr White's Shakespeare, iv. 391, is the
best refutation : —

" Malone decided at first for 1596, afterwards for 1606 ; Mr Knight looks
back to 1594 ; and Mr Collier inclines to 1601-3. All this is mere conjecture ;
but Mr Collier's opinion seems most consistent with the style of Shakespeare's
undoubted work upon the play."

104 DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. SHAKSPERE's SHARE IN THE SHREW.

evident that Shakspere made great use of the old comedy, both in
his Induction and in the body of the play," p. 441, ed. 1858.
This vaguer ' view ' was further modified by Mr Collier's mentioning,
in his notes, lines as Shakspere's that Mr Fleay now agrees with
me are spurious, in Act I. Sc. i., Sc. ii., p. 454, 458, 464, and saying
that the spurious " Redime te captum is quoted by Shakspere as
it stands in the Grammar," &c. We need not, therefore, trouble
ourselves further with Mr Collier.]

That Shakspere's hand is clearly seen in the retoucht Induction,
even in its opening lines, seems to me impossible to deny. The bits
about the hounds, the Warwickshire places,1 Sly's talk, the music,
pictures, &c., are Shakspere to the life. With Mr Grant White, I
claim the whole for him.

In Act I. Sc. i. comes a change of subject — the Play — and a
great change of style. So far as I can judge, that style is not
Shakspere's, though I should like to claim one touch of three lines
(179—181) for him:

Luc. Tranio, I saw her corrall lips to moue,
And with her breath she did perfume the ayre ;
Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.

p. 211, col. 2, repr. Booth.

I want to believe these lines are Shakspere's, though in metre I can
not say they are like him,

Of Act I. Sc. ii. no part, says Mr Grant White (p. 491), is by
Shakspere. I agree ; though, if it were not too much like picking all
the plums out of the pudding, and declaring them to be Shakspere's,
I would claim Grumio's knocking bits as his, and not the adapter's
of A Shrew.

Act II. Sc. i. opens not with Shakspere ; though we soon hear
the ring of his voice. But exactly where 1 At least where Petruchio
says (1. 169), how he'll woo Katharine :

Pet. I pray you do. I will2 attend her here,
And woo her with some spirit when she comes :
Say that she raile ; why, then He tell her plaine,
She sings as sweetly as a Nightinghale :
Say that she frowne ; He say she lookes as cleere
As morning Roses newly washt with dew, &c.

p. 216, col. 1, repr. Booth.

That passage is Shakspere's, I believe. (It did at first seem to

1 Mr Simpson : — May I interrupt you, and say there is an old poem
commencing, " The Wincot ale made Sly," &c.

(Wincot is 4 miles from Stratford. " Burton Heath " is probably meant
for Barton-on-the-Heatb, a village in Warwickshire.)

2 He.— Folio.

DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN THE SHREW. 105

me that he must have begun a little before that, by retouching
largely the adapter's work when Petruchio began real business with
Baptista, after Hortensio, Lucentio, and Biondello had left them
alone, 1. 115,

Pet. Signior Baptista, my businesse asketh haste,
And euerie day I cannot come to woo. — p. 215, col. 2, Booth,

but I lay no stress on the point, as Mr Tennyson does not adopt it).
"Well, we go on with Shakspere, for the whole wooing scene is
(in my opinion) his, up to 1. 326,

•' And kisse me, Kate, we will be married a Sonday."

p. 217, col. 2, repr. Booth.

and then there is a sudden and distinct drop to a hand which is not
Shakspere's, but is the adapter's, and which continues through Act
III. Sc. i.

Act III. Scene ii. In this scene the parts that I feel certain are
not Shakspere's are 1. 126 — 150, " He hath some meaning in his mad
attire," to "All for my master's sake, Lucentio " (p. 219-220, Booth) ;
and 1. 242 — 254, " Nay, let them goe ; a couple of quiet ones," to
"Gome, gentlemen, lets goe," p. 220, col. 2, Booth. Whether the
opening lines 1 — 125 are wholly Shakspere's I could not at first
make up my mind. The " mad-braine rudesby, full of spleene," 1.
10; the

Which at more leysure I will so excuse,

As you shall well be satisfied withall, — 1. 110-111,

lookt to me like Shakspere's; but was that cattle-disease book's cata
logue of the horse's ailments his, fond as he is of a list of names or
qualities ? Was this one up to his level 1 I doubted at first, but Mr
Tennyson has been good enough to give me his judgment that the
horse-passage may well be genuine Shakspere, — it " has such a rollick
ing Rabelaisian comic swing about it, that I cannot but suspect it to
be genuine Shakspere," — and I gladly yield. As to 1. 151 — 241,
" Signior Gremio, came you from the Church 1 " to " He buckler thee
against a Million," I do not doubt. These lines are, to me, Shakspere's.
So Act IV. Sc. i. (including Dyce's, Sc. ii.), — Grumio with his fellow-
servants, and Petruchio and Katharine — is, I think, Shakspere's.1
Act IV. Sc. ii. (iii. Dyce) — the scene with Tranio, Bianca, Lucentio,
&c. — is clearly by a different hand, the adapter's, and not Shakspere's.

1 Dr Abbott : — You are going on aesthetic grounds.

Mr Furnivall.: — Yes, because that is the way Mr Hickson and Mr Spedding
went ; first aesthetically ; and then Mr Spedding, Mr Fleay, and I tried what
the metrical tests said. If the judgment and tests differ, I will not deny the
genuineness of work evidently Shakspere's merely because of a metrical dif
ference, or a few weak syllables.

106 DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. SHAKSPERE's SHARE IN THE SHREW.

Then we come to Act IV. Sc. in., the scene between Katharine
and Grumio about the beef and mustard ; Petruchio and her with
the meat he's cookt ; and the Haberdashers and the gown ; which is
founded on, and closely follows, the old play, — that is, I submit,
Shakspere's. Act II. Sc. iv. (v. in Dyce) again between Tranio, the
Pedant, &c., is not Shakspere's ; but Sc. vi. in Dyce, or v. in the
Globe, — between Petruchio, Katharine, Vincentio, &c. — is, I think,
Shakspere's, altered from ( A Shrew.'

Act V. Sc. i. — between Biondello, the Pedant, &c. — is again not
Shakspere's, while Y. ii., in which the tamed Katharine is shown, is
his, except, I suppose, the few last ryming lines, 181 — 189, of which
two are in " A Shrew : " —

A Shrew. The Shrew.

Tis Kate and T am wed, and you are sped Pet. Come Kate, wee'le to bed ;
And so farewell, for we will to our beds. We three are married, but you two are

sued.

Compare the following lines : —

A Shrew. The Shrew.

Laying our handes vnder their feete to And place your hands below your hus-

tread, ' bands foote :

If that, by that, we might procure their In token of which dutie, if he please,

ease. My hand is readie, may it do him ease.

And for a president He first begin,
And lay my hand vnder my husbands

feete.

I think it will be possible, with a little more study, to cut the
play up with certainty, on Mr Grant White's lines, and to print the
non-Shaksperian part in small type, and the Shaksperian in large,
as Timon and the other semi-spurious plays should be done.

For the summary of the three writers' work in the Play, I must
still refer to Mr Grant White's words which I have quoted. The
old play- wright's work underlies the whole play, and crops up fre
quently all through ; the adapter's is seen in these structural changes
(Grant White) ; — 1, the removal of the scene of the action from
Athens to Padua ; 2, the addition of the disguising intrigues of Bianca's
lovers ; 3, the substitution of the Pedant for Vincentio ; and in the
re-cast of these Acts and Scenes : Act I. ; Act II. Sc. i., line 168
(with possible touches from 1. 115), 1. 326 — 413; Act III. Sc. i. ;
ii. 126—150, 242—254 ; Act IV. Sc. ii. iv. (iii. v. Dyce) ; Act V.
Sc. i. ; ii. 1. 181 — 189. IShakspere rewrote the Induction, and the
parts of Katharine and Petruchio, and almost all Grumio, with the
other characters on the stage at the same time as they were, namely,
Induction; II. i. 168 — 326; (^touching 115—167); III. ii. 1—
125, 151—240; IV. i. (and ii. Dyce), IV. iii. v. (iv. vi. Dyce);

D1SCN. APRIL 24. THE TAMING OF ' A ' SHREW, AND ' THE* SHREW. 107

and V. ii. 1 — 180 ; with occasional touches elsewhere.1 (All this,
as will be seen, only gives figures to Mr Grant White's outlines.)

I think the old play of " A Shrew " ought to be printed opposite
to the new Taming of The Shrew, because it is quite curious that
some parts — especially in the scene about the description of the
dress and the taking up the mistress's gown to the master's use —
are copied almost word for word by Shakspere. The parallel-text is
necessary to show how very largely both the adapter and Shakspere
were indebted to the old playwright. But I don't quote now any
passages for the adapter.

A Shrew, (p. 30.) The Shrew : Shakspere.

San. What say you to a peese of beeffe Gru. What say you to a peece of Beefe

and mustard now ? and Mustard ?

Kate. Why, I say tis excellent meate ; Kate. A dish that I do loue to feede

canst thou helpe me to some ? vpon.

San. I, I could helpe you to some, but Gru. I, but the mustard is too hot a

that I doubt the mustard is too colerick little.

for you. But what say you to a sheepes

head and garlick ?

Kate. Why, any thing ; I care not Kate. Then both or one, or any thing

what it be. thou wilt.

Out, villaine ! dost thou mocke me ? Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding
Take that for thy sawsinesse ! slaue ! Seats him.

She beats him.

A Shrew, (p. 34—36.) The Shrew, (p. 224, col. 1, Booth.)

Enter Ferando and Kate and Sander.

San. Master, the haberdasher has Fel. Heere is the cap your Worship

brought my did bespeake.

Mistresse home hir cappe here.
Feran. Come hither, sirra : what haue

you there ?
Habar. A veluet cappe, sir, and it Pet. A Veluet dish !

please you.
Feran. Who spoake for it ? didst thou,

Kate ?
Kate. What if I did ? come hither,

sirra ! giue me
The cap ! He see if it will fit me.

She sets it one hir head.
Feran. 0 monstrous, why it becomes

thee not,
Let me see it, Kate : here, sirra, take it Away with it, come let me haue a bigger.

hence !
This cappe is out of fashion quite.

1 P.S. Mr Fleay has since sent me his scheme of the Play. It agrees with
mine, except in omitting the Induction (which he has since included) ; and in
giving III. ii. 1—125 to Shakspere, and taking from him II. i. 115—167, in
which last two points it is no doubt right.

1 08 DISCN. APRIL 24. THE TAMING OF ' A ' SHREW, AND ' THE * SHREW.

(A Shrew.)
Kate. The fashion is good inough :

belike you
Meane to make a foole of me.

Fevan. Why, true, he meanes to make

a foole of thee,
To haue thee put on such a curtald

cappe !
Sirra, begon with it !

Enter the Taylor with a gowne.
San. Here is the Taylor too with my

Mistris gowne.
Feran. Let me see it, Taylor : what,

with cuts and iagges !
Sounes, you villaine, thou hast spoiled
the gowne !

Taylor. "Why, sir, I made it as your

man gaue me direction.
You may reade the note here.

Feran. Come hither, sirra Taylor,

reade the note.
Taylor. Item, a faire round compast

cape.

San. I, thats true.
Taylor. And a large truncke sleeue.
San. Thats a lie, maister. I sayd,

two truncke sleeues.
Feran. Well sir, goe forward.
Taylor. Item a loose bodied gowne.
San. Maister, if euer I sayd loose

bodies gowne,
Sew me in a seame, and beate me to

death,
With [a] bottome of browne thred.

Taylor. I made it as the note bad me.
San. I say the note lies in his throute,

and thou too,
And thou sayst it.

Taylor. Nay, nay, nere be so hot,

sirra, for I feare you not.
San. Boost thou heare, Taylor ? thou

hast braued

Many men : braue not me.
Thou'st faste many men.
Taylor. Well sir.
San. Face not me ! He neither be

faste nor braued
At thy handes, I can tell thee.

Kate. Come, come, I like the fashion

of it well enough,

Heres more a do then needs ; He haue
it, I,

(The Shrew.)

Kate. He haue no bigger ; this doth

fit the time . . .
Belike you meane to make a puppet

of me.
Pet. Why true, he meanes to make a

puppet of thee.

Pet. Thy gowne ; why, I : come

Tailor, let vs see 't. . . .
Heers snip, and nip, and cut, and slish

and slash,
Why, what, a deuils name, Tailor, cal'st

thou this ? . . .
Tat. Your worship is deceiu'd ; the

gowne is made

lust as my master had direction :
Grumio gaue order how it should be

done. . . .
Why, heere is the note of the fashion to

testify. . . .
Tai. With a small compast cape.

Gru. I confesse the cape.
Tai. With a trunke sleeue.
Gru. I confesse two sleeues.

Tail. Imprimis, a loose bodied gowne.
Gru. Master, if euer I said loose-bodied

gowne, sow me in the skirts of it, and
beate me to death with a bottome of
browne thred. . .

Tail. This is true that I say : and I
had thee in place where thou
shouldst know it.

Gru. Thou hast fac'd many things.

Tail. I haue.

Gru. Face not mee : thou hast bi-au'd
manie men ; braue not me ; I will neither
bee fac'd nor brau'd. . . .

Kate. I neuer saw a better fashion' d

gowne. . . .

Loue me, or loue me not, I like the cap,
And it I will haue, or I will haue none.

DISCN. APRIL 24. THE TAMING OF ' A ' SHREW, AND ' THE' SHREW. 109

(A Shrew.) (The Shrew.)

And if you do not like it, hide your eies :

i thinke I shall haue nothing by your Hor. I see shees like to haue neither

will. cap nor gowne. . , .

Feran. Go, I say, and take it vp for Pet. Go take it vp vnto thy masters

your maisters vse. vse.

San. Souns, villaine, not for thy life ! Grit. Villaine, not for thy life !

touch it not !

Souns ! take vp ray mistris gowne to his Take vp my Mistresse gowne for thy

Maisters vse ! masters vse !

Feran. Well, sir, whats your conceit Pet. "Why sir, what's your conceit iu

of it ? that ?

San. I haue a deeper conceite in it Gru. Oh sir, the conceit is deeper then

then you thinke for : you think for.

Take vp my raistris gowne Take vp my Mistress gowne

To his maisters vse ! to his masters vse. Oh fie, fie, fie.

Pet. Hortensio, say thou wilt see the

Tailor paide :

Feran. Tailor, come hether ; for this Go take it hence.

time take it

Hence againe, and He content thee for Hor. Tailor, He pay thee for thy

thy paines. gowne to-morrow.
Taylor. I thanke you sir.

Exit Taylor.

Feran. Come, Kate, we now will go Pet. "Well, come my Kate, we will

see thy fathers house vnto your fathers,

Euen in these honest meane abilliments. Euen in these honest meane habiliments :

Our purses shall be rich, our garments Our purses shall be proud, our garments

plaine, poore. . . .
To shrowd our bodies from the winter

rage.
And thats inough, what should we care

for more ?

Thy sisters, Kate, to morrow must be wed, .... we will hence forthwith,

And I haue promised them thou shouldst To feast and sport vs at thy fathers house.

be there

The morning is well vp : lets hast away ; Let's see ; I thinke 'tis now some seuen

a clocke,

It will be nine a clocke ere we come And well we may come there by dinner

there. time.

Kate. Nine a clock ! why tis allreadie Kate. I dare assure you, sir, 'tis

past two almost two ;

In the after noone by all the clocks in the And twill be supper time ere you come

towne. there.
Feran. I say tis but nine a clock in

the morning.
Kate. I say tis two a clocke in the

after noone.

Feran. It shall be nine then ere we go Pet. It shall be seuen ere I go to

to your fathers. horse ;

Come backe againe, we will not go to day. Looke, what I speake, or do, or thinkt to

Nothing but crossing of me still ! doe,

lie haue you say as I doo, ere you go. You are still crossing it. Sirs, let 't

Exeunt Umnes. alone ;

I will not goe to day ; and ere I doe,
It shall be what a clock I say it is.

110 DISCN, APRIL 24. THE TAMING OF ( A ' SHREW, AND ' THE ' SHREW.

Compare, too : —

A Shrew, (p. 39.)

Feran. Come, K ate, the Moone shines

cleare to night,
Methinkes.

Kate. The moone ? why, husband,

you are deceiued ;
It is the sun.

Feran. Yet againe ! come backe

againe ! it shall be
The moone

ere we come at your fathers.

Kate. "Why, He say as you say, it is
the moone.

Feran. lesus saue the glorious moone.
Kate. lesus saue the glorious moone.

The Shrew, (p. 225, col. 2.)

Pet. Good Lord, how bright
goodly shines the Moone.

and

Kate. The Moone ! the Sunne : it is
not Moonelight now.

Pet. I say it is the Moone that shines

so bright. . . .
It shall be moone, or starre, or what I

list,
Or ere I iourney to your Fathers

house. . . .
Kate. ... be it moone or sunne, or

what you please. . . .
.... it shall be so for me.
Pet. I say it is the Moone.
Kate. I knowe it is the Moone.

So also the bits about making Kate greet old Vincentio (the
Duke of Cestus in "A Shrew") as a "Faire louely maide," and the
scene of the bets on the wives' obedience, are both in A Shrew.

I had hoped that Mr Fleay would in his Paper have told us all
the details that I have given you ; but he has done so much other
work for us in so short a time, that he evidently has not been able
to complete this Paper in the way I am sure he would have done, had
he not been so hard-workt ; and I have therefore endeavourd to sup
plement his Paper with what I have already said.

I have applied the stopt-line test to The Shrew. The test shows
that the adapter used the unstopt line oftener (1 in 12*68) than
Shakspere (1 in 22*31), and thus distinguishes broadly the two
men's work. But the test does not hold good all through, between
scene and scene ; nor does it give Shakspere's part of the Play its
true place, by a great deal, in the order of the poet's works, as it
puts The Shreiv first, before Love's Labour's Lost} which must be
wrong, though, as a farce, it ought to come early : —

SHAKSPEEE. ADAPTER.

Act, &c. Unstopt

5-beat
verse.

Proportion. Act, <fec. Unstopt. 5^^

Proportion.

Induction.

9

333

1 in 37

1.

i.

40

201

lin 5

•02

II.

i.

6

141

» 28

•5

I.

ii.

8

242

„ 30-02

III.

ii.

10

152

„ 15-2

II.

i.

8

236

„ 29

•5

IV.

i.

1

83

„ 83

III.

i.

3

73

„ 24

•33

IV.

iii.

2

157

„ 78

•5

III.

ii.

1

38

„ 38

IV.

V.

5

79

„ 15

•8

IV.

ii.

12

119

„ 9

•11

V.

ii.

8

170

„ 21

•25

IV.

iv.

5

74

,» 14

•8

V.

i.

2

32

„ 16

41

915

1 in 22

•31

80

1015

1 in 12

•68

DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. MR FLEAY'S SHREW ARGUMENTS EXAMIND. Ill

Turning now to some of the details in the Paper, I am glad to
see that its original statement, in Consideration 3, is now modified by
the words " not illustrating English manners," because there is no
Duke (except a sham cheat) or King in The Merry Wives ; and
though two Dukes are mentiond in The Shrew, IV. ii. 83-4 ; V. i.
91, neither is a character in the play. But the only argument to
be drawn from the absence of a Duke in " The Shrew " is, that
Shakspere is not — as I have shown he certainly is not — the adapter
of the old play ; for that adapter has cut out from " A Shrew," the
Duke of Cestus,1 who was there the father of Aurelius, the repre
sentative of " The Shrew's " Lucentio, who won Bianca.

On the " Argument from Metrical Peculiarities," you will notice
what you will see elsewhere, that Mr Fleay has weakend his argu
ment by mixing up plainly genuine lines — genuine by his own
allowance — with plainly spurious lines ; so that, all through, the
inference from the Paper can only be, " both Shakspere and the
adapter have exactly the same faults and peculiarities. If you want
to find out in what proportion each has them, you must separate the
genuine and spurious instances for yourselves." Thus, of the 8 in
stances given under " 1," — seemingly to show that they are un-Shak-
sperien, — Shakspere, by Mr Fleay's later allowance, wrote 6.

II. i. 259. Go, fool ! and whom thou keep'st, command,

is Katharine's saying to Petruchio, and written by Shakspere. So
II. i. 300, " I'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first " is a good short
line of Katharine's, as III. ii. 233 ; IV. i. 164 ; V. ii. 66, are of Pe-
truchio's, and all written by Shakspere. III. ii. 185 is again Shak-
spere's, and right : —

Hark ! hark ! I hear the minstrels play.

So is IV. iii. 30, "Why, then, the mustard without the

beef." No one who heard old Keeley say that to Mrs Nisbett (Lady
Boothby) as I did, could have misst the syllable, I'm sure, for the
line is prose. (But I don't now recollect the delivery of the line,
of course.) The other examples that I claim as genuine Shakspere
are IV. iii. 62 ; IV. i. 150, 163 ; V. ii. 38, 40, 43 ; Ind. ii. 114 ; IV.
i. 153.

Mr Fleay says with reason (p. 88) that he does not lay much
stress on this argument.

With regard to Mr Fleay's argument against the genuineness of
parts of The Shrew, because they use getifmen for gentlemen, I do
not think we can give much weight to it, when we compare the six
lines he quotes, with the following four instances from Shakspere's
short part of Pericles as extracted for us by Mr Fleay himself in the
Marina given to you to-night : —

1 The merchant Vincentio of " The Shrew ; " see Act I. So. i., &c.

112 DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. MR FLEAY'S SHREW ARGUMENTS EXAMIND.

Gent'mcn, this Queene will Hue ; nature awakes
A warme breath out of her. p. 217, 1. 5.

Helly. That hee haue his. Call vp some genfmen.
2 Say. Ho

Gent'men, my Lord calls, p. 225, 11. 6, 7.

Per. What meanes the mm 1 shee dies, helpe genfmen.
Ceri. Noble sir.

p. 234, 1. 9.

In the argument from the use of Latin quotations, Mr Fleay has
overlookt the fact that in Love's Labour's Lost alone there are three
at least ; — " Veni, vidi, vici," Act iv. sc. 1, line 68 ; " Vir sapit qui
pauca loquitur," Act iv. sc. 2, line 82 ; Fauste, precor gelida quando
pecus omne sub umbra ruminat in Act iv. sc. 3, 1. 95 (beginning of
the First Eclogue of Mantuanus (t. i. Baptista Spagnolo, Dyce), besides
some Latin phrases, Satis quod sufficit, V. i. 1, &c. Also in The,
Comedy of Errors , IV. iv. 44, is " respice finem." Perhaps the " in
terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant" of Henry V., Act i. sc. 2, 1.
38, is not in point.

As to the manner of introducing classical allusions (p. 89), if the
argument is that Shakspere " never " uses similes, but always meta
phors, we can only open, say, Troilus and Cressida at hazard, and
find

That's done as neere as the extreamest ends
Of paralels, as like as Vulcan and his wife.

I. iii. 167-8, p. 574, col. 2, Booth.

thou art as ful of enuy at his greatnes as Cerberus is at Pro
serpina's beauty. — II. i. 36-7, p. 576, col. 2, Booth.

And yet the spacious bredth of this diuision
Admits no orifex [= orifice] for a point as subtle
As Ariachnes broken woofe to enter.

V. ii. 150-2, p. 594, col. 1, Booth.

I, Greeke : and that shall be divulged well

In Characters as red as Mars his heart

Inflam'd with Venus.— V. ii. 163-5, p. 594, col. 1.

Mr Simpson will deal with the argument from the lists of words
not used in Shakspere's undoubted Plays (p. 89). I have had the ad
vantage of consulting a few sheets (A — D) of Dr Schmidt's Shakspere
Lexicon, of which I am glad to say the first volume is nearly ready,
and will soon be publisht by Williams and Norgate. This Lexicon
has the great advantage over Mrs Cowden Clarke's Concordance, that
it includes the words in the Minor Poems, distinguishes the senses
in which all the words are used, and gives instances of the con
struction of verbs, &c. ; it is an extremely valuable book. I was

DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. MR FLEAY's SHREW ARGUMENTS EXAMIND. 113

therefore enabld to point out that several words were in the Minor
Poems,1 and these Mr Fleay has, I believe, cut out of his lists for
The Shrew and Titus.

One word I was astonisht to see in TJie Shrew list, and that is
" Banns," the marriage ' banns ' — Folio * Banes ' — for Shakspere uses
it twice : — in Lear V. iii. 87, Tragedies, p. 307, col. 2 (on p. 797 at
foot), Booth :

my wife :

Tis she is sub-contracted to this Lord,

And I, her husband, contradict your Banes.

and 1 Henry IV., IV. ii. 13, "contracted Batchelers, such as had
beene ask'd twice on the Banes" p. 67 (369 at foot) col. 1, Booth,
Histories.

" Unreverent" too is in Rich. II., Act II. sc. i., in the Folio, p.
29, col. 1, Histories, Booth's reprint : —

Wer't thou not Brother to great Edwards sonne,
This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head,
Should run thy head from thy VNREUERENT shoulders.

Is it not rather hard, too, to treat " Adonis " as not part of the
vocabulary of the author of Venus and Adonis ? But leaving single
words, I object to the including of Shakspere's known words in the
same list with those of the adapter of the old play. Out of Mr Fleay's
1 30 words which he says are not used in the undoubted plays, at least
47 are Shakspere's. Out of his 20 words (that is, 18, as basin is
counted twice) used in The Shreic, Pericles, and Titus, at least 11
are Shakspere's (daunt, youngling, basin, unreverent, miry, confer,
amort, cockle, Adonis, lustful, Semiramis) : — how, then, can we be
askt to regard the argument from the other 7 as " unanswerable " ?

I think any argument founded on once-used words, and inflexions,
must be liable to mislead ; because, if you take up the Sonnets, for
instance, and turn to Sonnet three, you find two words, " unbless "
and " unear'd," and one flexion, " renewest," not used elsewhere
in Shakspere; three words in 14 lines, or in the proportion of 570
once-used words to the 2671 lines in The Shreiv. Therefore I do
not attribute any real weight to these mere lists of words — unweighd,
as Mr Simpson says — in the Paper.

1 Daunt, Lucrece, 462, 2 Hen. IV., I. i. 10 ; dazzle Lucrece, 377, Hen.
V, I. ii. 279, Love's L. L., I. i. 12 ; 'cause, Macbeth, III. vi. 21 ; dandle,
Venus, 561 ; drouth, Vemts, 544 ; lustful, Lucrece, 169, 179 ; Venus, 47 ;
bear.whelp, Gloster's speech (Shakspere's), 3 Hen. VI., III. ii. 161 ; brinish,
Luoreoe, 1213 ; coverlet, Lucrece, 394 ; &c. Mrs H. H. Furness's excellent
4 Concordance to Shakespeare's Poems ' just out, enables me to add that ' out
cast,' adj. is in Sonnet 29, 1. 2 ; ' youngling ' in Pass. Pilgr., 4, 2 ; ' trance * in
Luorece, 972, 1595; 'joyless 'in Lucrece, 1711 ; « oratory ' in JAwreoe, 564,
815 ; • ruinate' in Lwreee, 944, Sennet 10, 1. 7.

TRANSACTIONS. 8

114 DISCN. APRIL 24. MR SIMPSON ON SHAKSPERE's ONCE-USED WORDS.

I am grateful to Mr Fleay for his Paper, which does contain
material that, when properly handled, will add to the evidence of a
non-Shakspere hand in the Play ; hut I have shown that the Paper
needs the revision and completion that Mr Fleay is so well able to
give it, if he has hut time for the task.

MR RICHARD SIMPSON said : — The table I hold in my hand (and
which is printed below) will show the futility of any attempt to prove
that Titus Andronicus, or the Taming of the Shrew, or Timon, or Pericles,
or Henry VI, is not Shakspere's, because of the number of words used
in any one of those plays, but nowhere else in Shakspere's undoubted
works. The table was formed by making lists of all the words which
Mrs Cowden Clarke's Concordance refers to one play only. These lists
are not of much critical value, because Mrs Clarke counts all forms of
a word as so many different words, while, on the other hand, she
counts all words spelt alike as one word. Thus ' see, seeth, seen,' are
three words ; saw, the perfect of see, and saw, the carpenter's tool, are
but one word. Wound is but one word, whether it means " a hurt,"
"to hurt," or "coiled." But such as they are, the lists necessarily
give an approximate idea of the relative number of cnra£ Xeyo^iva
in each of the Shaksperian plays.

The result is, on the whole, that it is not the doubtful plays,
those written partly by Shakspere, partly by other hands, which are
richest in these rarities. And the remarkable consequence is, that
if we take as the truest Shaksperian diction the word-list which is
common to all the plays, then the false Shakspere is much more
Shaksperian than the true. In his exceptional vocabulary Shak
spere is much less like himself than his imitators or rivals are like
him. Thus if we take Shakspere's part of Henri/ VIII we shall
find it has twice more of these once-used words than Fletcher's part ;
so it is in Pericles, in spite of the archaisms of the Gower choruses.

I do not question the use which may still be made of crucial
words to determine what is and what is not Shaksperian. Such
words are to be weighed, not counted. The mere averages are
decidedly adverse to the argument that Titus Andronicus or the
Shrew is not Shakspere's, because of the number of rare words it
contains. (See the Table over leaf.)

DISCN. APRIL 24. SIMPSON'S TABLE OF SHAKSPERE's ONCE-USED WORDS. 115

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116 DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. MR ELLIS ON THE METRE OF TUK SHREW.

MR ALEXANDER J. ELLIS considered that Mr Simpson had so far
disposed of Mr Fleay's argument from words of single occurrence,
that until Mr Fleay had replied to Mr Simpson there was no need
to discuss it further. Mr Ellis did not intend to refer to any
aesthetic principles, as Mr Fleay did not proceed on that ground.
The play was almost avowedly, certainly indisputably, a revision of
an older play, which may have been " padded out" by another hand
before it was " newly adapted " by Shakspere, who probably skimmed
over it, putting in lines or parts of lines here and there, and whole
scenes frequently. It is probable that he left much untouched and
much unfinished. Hence marks of carelessness cannot well be
counted against him, such as lines deficient in a foot. The old play
is full of faulty lines. "Without pretending to amend, or to distin
guish what is or what is not Shakspere's, the following hasty jottings
will serve to show how easy it would have been to make all straight,
had the writer cared ; the inference of course being that he either
did not care, or did not revise and see what words he had omitted.
They are taken in Mr Fleay's order. The italics mark possible (not
proposed] insertions. They must not be looked upon at all in the
light of " conjectural emendations."

(1.) Lines deficient by a whole measure : —

i. 1. 57. Kath. I pray you, sir,

Is it your will to make a stale of me
Amongst these mates ?

Hor. Mates, maid ! how mean you that 1
No mates for you,
Unless you were of gentler milder mood.

A short line begins the speech. The division of Hortensio's
speech is that of the Folio. Rhythmically there is no objection.

ii. 1. 259. Go, fool, and whom thou keep'st command, not it.
ii. I. 267. Pet. Am I not wise?

Katli. Not wise ? yes ; keep you warm.

Not adduced by Mr Fleay. A repetition, averring her agreement
that Petruchio is not ivise, but, like " poor Tom, a-cold." — Lear, IV.
i. 53.
ii. 1. 301. Kath. I'll see you hanged on Sunday first.

This may be prose, or designedly imperfect, because the next speech
of Gremio and that of Tranio are prose, and the first line of Pe-
truchio's reply is also, I think, prose. The effect of the prose bit is
extremely good. It would have been extremely easy to versify the
whole, by omitting " hark," in Gremio's speech, and making it an
entire repetition of Katharine's, by introducing " on Sunday," thus :

Kath. I'll see you hanged on Sunday first.

Ore. She says she'll see you hanged on Sunday first, Petruchio.

DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. MR ELLIS ON THE METRE OF THE SHREW. 117

iii. 2. 185. Hark, hark ! I hear the minstrels play. They come.

Or else the line is deficient, as those ending a scene often are. Or
else it is a prose bit, being quite distinct from the speech. I differ
entirely from Mr Furnivall's scansion of the line.

iii. 2. 233. My household stuff, my field, my corn, my barn.

Some such insertion is wanted for the gap in sense as well as in
metre. I don't think any one with an ear would have had an eight-
syllable line here.

iv. 1. 61. Pet. What's this 1 Mutton?
First servant. Ay.
Pet. Who brought it ?
Peter. I.
Pet. Tis burnt, and so is all the meat.

I take all this to be mere prose, just as presently iv. 1, 182 — 186.

iv. 4. 46. The match is made, and all is said and done.
v. 2. 66. Let's each one here now send unto his wife.

In both cases these are obviously possible slips.

There are numerous other cases of defective lines in the play.

(2.) Lines deficient by a syllable (not initial) must have been
oversights, whoever was the writer, and are hence no criterion at all.
Those adduced may be spontaneously corrected thus : —

i. 1. 14. Vincentio's son, myself, brought up in Florence.
Compare Norval's

And keep his eldest son, myself, at home.

i. 2. 190. No ! say'st me so, my friend] What countryman.

i. 2. 251. Sir, let me be so bold as ask o/you.
ii. 1. 73. Beccare ! you are marvellous??/ forward.
iii. 2. 168. What said the wench when he rose up again ?
iv. 1. 123. Where be these knaves'? What, no man at the door.
iv. 3. 30. Why then the mustard, but without the beef.
iv. 3. 62. Lay forth the gown.

This ends the scene, then the tailor enters, and the next scene begins
with another half-line, which does not fit on to the former.

What news with you, Sir 1

iv. 4. 33. and if you please to like

No worse than I do, upon some agreement
Me shall you find ready and willing too.
iv. 4. 55. There at my lodging, an it like you, sir.

There seems to be no use dwelling upon such lines which are in-

118 DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. MR ELLIS ON THE METRE OF THE SHREW.

capable of proving anything but oversights of writer or printer. The
above, like the others, are not advanced as emendations. They are
merely notes of the kind of word which must have been omitted, for
the purpose of showing that the lines could not have been defective
from sheer lack of ear.

(3.) Lines in which the first measure is of one syllable : —

i. 1. 48, i. 1. 73, i. 1. 90, beginning with "gentlemen" may
all have been "good gentlemen." Compare Hamlet iii. 1. 26, and
ii. 2. 19.

i. 2. 160. Gre. 0 this learning, what a thing it is !
i. 2. 161. Gru. 0 this woodcock, what an ass it is !

are probably quite intentional, but have no particular value. The
next line, however, which Mr Fleay omits, should be noticed. It is
an Alexandrine.

Pet. Peace, sirrah !

Hor. Grumio, mum ! God save you, Signior Gremio.

Where the rhythm is nearly identical with a line quoted by Mr
Fleay, without the three initial syllables, as an instance of this kind.

i. 1. 73. Luc. Peace, Tranio !

Tra. Well said, master; mum ! & gaze your fill.

Where, however, Well said, may be an error; the line is better
without it.

i. 2. 198. Gru. Will he woo her? ay, or I'll hang her

is probably pure prose. It would have been easy to lick into verse,
but was not worth the trouble.

i. 2. 247. Gre. What's this ? This gentleman will out-talk us all,

where the this might easily have dropped, and the 's of course with
it. There is a measure of three syllables, not a dissyllabic " gent-
'man."

ii. 1. 109. Bap. Holla, within ! Sirrah, lead these gentlemen to
my daughters ; and tell them both these are their tutors. Bid them
use them well.

This seems to be pure prose, and the body of it cannot be cut
up into verse in any way (especially if we read " both these," and
not " both, these "), though head and tail may be so served.

ii. 1. 202. No such a jade as you, if me you mean,
iii. 2. 89. Come, where be these gallants ? Who's at home ?

Pure prose, as the following lines down to iii. 2. 92. So also is iv.

DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. MR ELLIS ON THE METRE OF THE SHREW. 119

1. 163, &c., as before remarked. There's a continual jumble of prose
and verse in this play, as well as in the older Taming of a Shrew.
It would be too long to consider the other examples here. The
above examples suffice to show my meaning of supposing the writer
to have some faint conception of rhythm.

(4.) Lines of six measures, the first monosyllabic. These are
difficult to believe in, if a measure of three syllables will serve to
make the line perfect, as in

iv. 1. 153. Where's my span|iel Trojilus1? Sir|rah, get | you hence.

iv. 2. 1 — 6 is more prose than verse. Any scansion is rough. Hor-
tensio and Tranio speak prose, till Hortensio bursts into poetry at
line 16, but Bianca and Lucentio speak verse.

iv. 2. 33. Never | to mar|ry with her | though she'd [ entreat.
The " with" might be omitted, with advantage to the rhythm.
i. 2. 194. 0 sir | such a life | with such | a wife | were strange.

Or we may omit " sir."

More time than they deserve has been bestowed on such verses,

which have simply been left unfinished. But

(5.) Doggerel verses, said to be "chiefly" of four measures in
each line, require a word, because Mr Fleay has scanned them
strangely.

i. 1. 68. Tra. Hush, master! here's some good ly pastime toward.
That wench is stark mad or else wonderful fro ward.

i. 2. 4 — 19 is all prose, with some mad rhymes stuffed in,
without a particle of metre left or intended. See the remnant of it
in the tag to Grumio's following speeches to Hortensio, line 34.

As to the "remarkable and conclusive phenomenon" that the
verses are regular in iv. 5 and v. 2, &c., there is nothing remarkable
in it. Even in the old play, when Ferando (its Petruchio) is not
playing his antics, he can speak good enough verse. The occasion
does not seem sufficiently allowed for. So far as the argument goes,
it is not so much against Shakspere having written the play, or
rather the irregular parts of it, as against any man having written
them who had the least ear for verse, or even knew the difference
between verse and prose. So far as Mr Fleay has here gone he has,
I think, failed to find a test for distinguishing Shakspere's part. We
know that Shakspere wrote only part. But probably his corrections
were so interwoven with the original that separation is impossible.
The play is an outrageous farce, and that must be fully borne in
mind.

DR ABBOTT : — I take a rather different view from that taken by
the previous speakers, in attaching a great deal more importance to
the labours of Mr Fleay than they seem to have attached. He has

120 DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. DR ABBOTT ON THE METRE OF THE SHREW.

set us on the right track, and given us some extremely valuable hints ;
and the accumulations of his labours will be very useful to us for
future investigations. Mr Ellis has said he attaches no importance
to the irregular lines on page 86 cf Mr Fleay's paper as being
directions to servants, some of them in quasi prose. But of course
in other plays of Shakspere there are directions to servants, and in
other plays there are quasi prose lines. Yet I doubt whether, from
any other genuine play of Shakspere's you could extract the same
number of metrical irregularities.

Then Mr Ellis calls attention to the fact that Mr Fleay, by giving
us his grounds, has at last given as it were a handle — and has
gratified the wish " Oh ! that mine enemy would write a book ; " —
but I think if Mr Fleay were here he might fairly retaliate on Mr
Ellis, " Oh that mine enemy would make conjectural emendations."
Undoubtedly these lines do show a great deal of uncouthness — pos
sibly they were written in a great hurry. All I can say is, that
Shakspere was not in the habit of writing in so uncouth a way, as to
afford room for the ingenuity of a member of the new Shakspere
Society to hit off fifteen conjectural emendations stans pede in uno ;
arid, however little trouble Shakspere may have taken to supervise
his plays, he did not turn out such wretched specimens of metre as
we find quoted by Mr Fleay from The Taming of the Shrew.

I should differ from Mr Ellis in several points of his explanation
of Mr Fleay's metrical examples : and, though it is rather late, a
word may be allowed as to the two lines beginning with " Oh ! "
I think (differing here from Mr Fleay) that they are quite in Shak
spere's metre. I can quote at least one similar line from Lear, IV.
ii. 7—

" Oh the difference of man and man."

And there are many other instances where Oh was used as a mono
syllabic foot. But it is unnecessary to enter into further detail.
Mr Ellis, in making his 15 conjectural emendations, has borne as
decided testimony to the irregularities of the metre as Mr Fleay him
self could desire, and more decidedly than I could.

I pass from the metrical irregularities in Mr Fleay's extracts to
the question, What part of the play was written by Shakspere ? And
here I quite agree with Dr Nicholson (and so far disagree with Mr
Fleay) in thinking that at least some parts of the Induction were
written by Shakspere. Take the 2nd scene in the Induction, lines
42 and following : —

" Say thou wilt walk ; we will bestrew the ground :
Or wilt thou ride 1 thy horses shall be trapp'd,
Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.
Dost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark : or wilt thou hunt ?

DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. DR ABBOTT ON THE METRE OP THE SHREW. 121

Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them,

And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
First serv. Say thou wilt course ; thy greyhounds are as swift

As breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.
Sec. serv. Dost thou love pictures 1 we will fetch thee straight

Adonis painted by a running brook,

And CytRerea all in sedges hid,

Which seem to move and wanton with her breath,

Even as the waving sedges play with wind."

That seems to me in language, sound, and rhythm, to be
Shakspere's. Compare it with the passage in Act ii. Sc. 3, line 171 :

" Say that she rail ; why then I'll tell her plain
She sings as sweetly as a nightingale :
Say that she frown ; I'll say she looks as clear
As morning roses newly wash'd with dew.
Say she be mute and will not speak a word ;
Then I'll commend her volubility."

Now for two confirmatory tests (there are doubtless many
others) to prove that the opening lines of the play, in the dia
logue between Tranio and Lucentio, are not Shakspere's. Note the
frequent stress laid upon unemphatic syllables, receiving the metrical
accent : —

Line 1. " Tranio, since for the great desire I had."
„ 10. " Pisa renowned for grave citizens."
„ 18. "Virtue and that part of philosophy."
„ 50. " That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter."
„ 157. "And now in plainness do confess to thee."

Next note the inversions. Take line 21 : —

Line 21. " Tell me thy mind ; for I have Pisa left."
„ 45. " Such friends as time in Padua shall beget."
„ 49. " For how I firmly am resolved you know."
„ 159. " As Anna to the queen of Carthage was."

These two tests (which, with the regular pause at the end of the
line, contribute to a general monotonous and weak result) might help
to prove that a great deal in this play is not Shakspere's ; and valu
able as aesthetic tests are, these other critical tests deserve attention,
and perhaps more attention than they have yet received.

But further, I attach, I must confess, some importance even to
the Word-Test. I find, for instance, that the word " specially " occurs
twice in Act i. Sc. 1, lines 20 and 21, and I believe not in any
other play of Shakspere. Now there is every reason why that word
should occur more often, if it were a word of Shakspere's vocabulary.

Mr Simpson : — May I just contradict you in one thing] I have

122 DISCN. APRIL 24. DR ABBOTT ON SPECIAL WORDS IN THE iHREW.

noticed that where words are used in only one play, they occur
three or four times in it.

Dr Abbott : — But a great deal depends on the nature of the word.
A word like " wind-galls " may well occur in only one play, and in
that play often : but a word like " specially " stands on a different
footing. Again, note that some of the selected words occur in this
play, and in other plays believed not to be Shakspere's, e. g. 3 Henry
VI., but not in Shakspere's undoubted plays. Such words assume
increased importance. Very important also are common words
used in uncommon senses in this play only. For example : —

In line 250 there is the word " rests." Of course the word " rests "
is common enough in Shakspere, but these three places in Henry VI.
Third Part, and two places in Henry VI. Second Part, are the only
cases (as far as I could see from a rapid glance down the Concordance)
where this word is used in the sense of remains. If so, I should
consider that that word would have far more importance than the
fact that " wind-galls " is found in the Taming of the Shrew, but not
in the rest of Shakspere. Again, take line 60, Act i. Sc. 2, where
" wish " is used as to commend. It also occurs again in line 64.
One word like this is worth 50 ordinary words — 50 such words as
" spavins " or " wind-galls," &c.

Again take,

" To old Baptista as a Schoolmaster
Well seen in music."

I have looked hastily through the references to the whole of the
plays without finding an instance of a similar use.
Then line 157 "in place " :

" As firmly as yourself were still in place"

" In place " often occurs in Spenser in that sense, but I cannot
find it in Shakspere. In

" Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat ! "
" Have I not in a, pitched battle fought ? "

I was at first inclined to think that the dissyllabic pitched was
suspicious; but I think Petruchio is intended to speak with a cer
tain degree of bombast, which accounts for the dissyllabic pitched t
and for chafed in the previous line.

In line 277 there is the Latin use of the word " contrive " :

" Please ye we may contrive this afternoon."

Mr Simpson : — In Coriolanus you may find many such instances
of the Latin use of words.

Dr Abbott :— True. Well, then take : —

" Is it for him you do envy' me so ] " (Act ii. Sc. 1, line 18.)

DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. DR NICHOLSON ON THE SHREW. 123

One remembers, " I did envy1 those Jacks," in the Sonnets ; but
I do not remember the verb being thus accented in the plays.
Lastly take : —

" Now is the day we long have looked for." (Act ii. Sc. 1, 1. 335.)

I may be mistaken, but this dis-syllabic use of looked, without
anything to justify an archaic usage, seems to me very un-Shak-
sperian.

In short, you cannot dispose of Mr Fleay's list of words by say
ing, " I can get just as many in other plays." Each word must be
taken on its own merits. Some are unimportant, some important.
Most important of all are those that occur in Taming of the Shrew,
in common with the suspected plays.

I may conclude by saying that my attention would not have
been directed to this interesting subject but for Mr Fleay, and I am
glad to have this opportunity of expressing my obligation to his
Shaksperian labours.

DR B. NICHOLSON : If we accept the use of new words, or rather,
with Dr Abbott, that of words in other senses, as proofs of other
authorship, we must still beware of extending this argument to
prove that the passages where they occur have had no retouch of
Shakspere's pen, for when overwriting plays he left or worked in
words and phrases that he found in his original.

With regard to some of the general arguments used in the Paper,
I would demur to the statement that Fletcher ridiculed The Taming
of the Shrew. In this the woman is tamed by the man ; and the
play being popular, Fletcher conceived the idea of writing a sequel,
in which Petruchio, the tamer, is in turn tamed by a second wife.
As a sequel it was performed before King Charles in 1633, within
three days of the other. Both were liked ; and, though there is a
facetious turning of the tables, there is (I conceive) no ridicule of
the older play. Again, that The Taming of the Shrew is not men
tioned by Meres is not, I think, so conclusive an argument as at first
sight appears, either as regards Shakspere's part-authorship or its
date. It is a peculiarity of Meres, hitherto, I believe, unobserved,
that he affects a pedantic parallelism of numbers. With hardly an
exception, and these not going beyond a difference of one or two,
the English names are equalled in number with the ancient or
foreign ones, and some art is used to bring this about. In like
manner he gives to Shakspere six Comedies and six (as he calls
them) Tragedies. Now it is possible that in 1597 or 1598 Shakspere
had written exactly six of each, neither mote nor less, but it is by
no means probable ; and when we find Meres eking out the Tragedies
with one in which Shakspere had so small a share as Titus Andro-
nicus, we can understand that he might, for uniformity of numbers'
sake, have omitted a Comedy which is only Shakspere's in part.

124 DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. DR NICHOLSON ON THE SHREW.

The argument from the want of any Induction in a wholly
Shakspere play proves what we may gather already from the old
Taming of a Shrew that such an Induction was not Shakspere's own
idea. But I take it that the proof from clumsiness as a proof that
Shakspere had nothing to do with the present Induction, proves too
much, because no playwright could have' omitted to make provision
for getting Sly off the stage ; or if he had done so foolish a thing,
the players would have quickly required him to amend his blunder.
The omission in the printed copies of the parcel-Shakspere play
coincides with some omissions in the printed copies of the older, and
can (I think) be explained. Sly's part evidently required one of the
leading comic actors ; and the probability is, that he would be
utilized throughout, as are the citizen and citizen's wife in The
Knight of the Burning Pestle. Nor is this a mere probability ; Sly
in the old play specially explains what he is going to do :

Sim, stand by me,
And weele flowt the plaiers out of their coates.

But in the printed copy he does nothing of the sort : and what he
does say is short and trifling enough to be given to a mere " hired
man." Hence it may be concluded that he did what was common
on the old stage, and was the especial privilege of the clown, intro
duce extempore remarks, or, as it is called, " gag." As, too, the play
was a popular one, — for we have the old play, then the recasting by
a second author (as to which the occurrence of a Duke in the old play
makes Mr Fleay's argument especially strong), then the alterations
by Shakspere, and, lastly, Fletcher's sequel, — the probability is that
much of the gag was a kind of traditional part. If so, Shakspere
(and the same may apply to playwright No. 2), having re-written —
as I believe he did re-write — the greater part of the Induction, may
have left the rest to the old tradition ; or, if the parts were written,
he, knowing that the players had them already, did not trouble
himself to insert them in his revisal copy.

Dr Abbott, in arguing that the greater part at least of the
present Induction is Shakspere's, has compared the passage, "Wilt
thou have music1?" (sc. 2), with " Say that she rail" (ii. 1); and to
this I would add, that both have to me the very run of the Venus
and Adonis. In the description also, in the same passage, of the
pictures of Cytherea, lo and Daphne, we find the praise of life-
likeness given in precisely the manner in which we find Shakspere
giving it elsewhere, as to the picture in Lucrece, to that of the horse
in Venus and Adonis (1. 290, &c.), to the carvings in Imogen's
chamber, and to the supposed statue of Hermione. In almost the
first words also, the " S. Jeronimy," we have one of those subtle
touches which, founded on the law of association of ideas, is
thoroughly Shaksperian, and not found in other writers. Sly
would answer by a well-known scrap from the tragedy of leronimoj

DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. DR NICHOLSON ON THE SHREW. 125

but, being very drunk, and the " go by " lending itself to the idea of
an oath, he confuses the name with that of St Jeronirao (or Jerome),
perhaps also with that of Jeremy the prophet, and jumbles out "go
by St Jeronirny." J Compare again—

To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound (Sc. 1)
with

Utter such dulcet and harmonious breath.

Midsummer Night's Dream —
or,

And see him dress'd in all suits like a lady —
with

That I did suit me all points like a man. — As You Like It.

where the rhythm is the same in both. So a number of phrases
might be paralleled, all Shaksperian, such as, " deep-mouthed —
soft low tongue — kind embracements — declining head — infused with
so foul a spirit — Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them,
&c. — envious floods," — and the like. Moreover, it will be observed,
that of the six metrical non-Shaksperian peculiarities mentioned by
Mr Fleay, only one example of No. 4 is given by him from the
Induction, and none of 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. Confessedly, one mono
syllabic first foot may be Shakspere's ; and it may be that the line
originally stood as " My madam wife." Lastly, there are two passages
which, as bearing also on the date, seem to me most interesting. If
we accept the argument that there is a reference to Heywood's
Woman killed with kindness, our play must have been written after
the early months of 1603 (Hensloufs Diary, pp. 248 — 250); but
Malone gave it up, probably seeing that an argument from a quasi-
proverbial saying was of little more weight than one taken from
Heywood's previous play, The Blind eats many a Fly. The first
passage (Sc. 1) includes both the lord's reception of the players, and
his order that they should want nothing, and while the whole is to
my mind in Shakspere's style, both parts give Shakspere's views, as
shown again in Hamlet, of the position of the player and the con
sideration shown them by true noblemen, — views not set forth by
any other dramatist, — and both contain, as appears to me, the
germs of the Hamlet and player conference, and of the direction —
" Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed," &c. (ii. 2).
Looked at in connection with this, the saying (Sc. 2),

Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of phrenzy,

reads like the germ of Polonius's, " he fell into a sadness . . . and
by this declension into the madness wherein now he raves " (Ham
let, ii. 2).

1 Compare Cassio's drunken prayer, because, in trying to stoop, he hr.s
fallen on his knees, as also Lear's sudden thought of shoeing with felt.

126 DISCUSSION. AJPRIL 24. MR WHEATLEY ON TITUS ANDRONICUS.

MR HENRY B. WHEATLEY thought that Mr Fleay had treated the
question of the authenticity of Titus Andronicus with unmerited
contempt, and he said that, in face of the strong external evidence
in its favour, those who saw Shakspere's hand in this play might
well ask for some reasons, in addition to a mere list of words, from
those who wished to expunge it entirely from Shakspere's Works.
The three points of external evidence are, 1. that Titus is men
tioned by Meres in 1598 among other undoubted plays of Shak-
spere; 2. that it is printed in the first Folio (1623), which edition
does not contain Pericles, one of the other doubtful plays ; 3. that
Kavenscroft, who revived and altered the play in 1687, states that
the tradition in his day was that it was brought to Shakspere to be
touched up and prepared for the stage. This tradition is most
likely very near the truth, although Langbaine charges Ravenscroft
with making light of Shakspere's work in order to raise the opinion
of his own alterations. Charles Knight was probably almost alone
among English critics in his opinion that the play was entirely
written by Shakspere, but nevertheless his arguments are well put
together, and exhibit no want of " sanity."

Thomas Keightley entirely repudiated Shakspere's connection
with this play, but thought it possible that the two scenes in which
the clown appears might be from his pen, because he believed that
no clown was introduced into the plays of any of Shakspere's con
temporaries. This, however, cannot be conceded, because if Shak
spere added any speeches at all, he must have written some of the
serious ones which exhibit so much of his characteristic style.

The chief point of the controversy must, however, hinge upon
the question of date, because, from the want of character in the play,
it could only have been Shakspere's at an early period of his career.
Now, although the earliest edition we possess was published in
1600, Langbaine mentions an edition of 1594, and in his play,
Bartholomew Fair (1614), Ben Jonson speaks of Titus Andronicus
and Jeronimo as having been popular for 25 or 30 years. If we
take the first number we arrive at the date 1589, soon after Shak
spere had come to London ; and if we suppose it to have been his
earliest play, it must, notwithstanding its horrors, be to us a most
interesting work. There are in the play several hints of passages
afterwards worked up by Shakspere in other places, as in Act i.
Sc. 1 :—

Bassianus. " Romaines, friends, followers, favourers of my right,"
which is echoed in the first line of Marc Antony's speech in Julius
Ccesar ; and again in Act ii. Sc. 1 :

Demetrius. " Shee is a woman, therefore may be woo'd :
Shee is a woman, therefore may be wonne ; "

Booth's Reprint, p. 36, col. 1.

which lines are remarkably parallel to Gloucester's remark on Lady
Anne, — Richard III., Act i. Sc. 2,

DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. MR WHEATLEY ON TITUS ANDRONICUS. 127

" Was ever woman in this humour woo'd ?
Was ever woman in this humour wonne 1 "

Booth's Eeprint, p. 176, col. 2.

In the 1st Part of Henry VI. is a slightly different version of the
passage :

" She's beautifull ; and therefore to be wooed :
She is a woman ; therefore to be wonne."

Act v. sc. 3 (Booth's Eeprint, p. 116, col. 1).

Besides these there are a large number of passages which in style
exhibit strong traces of the Shaksperian ring, such as the following —

" Andronicus. Haile, Rome,
Victorious in thy mourning Weedes :
Loe as the Barke that hath discharg'd his fraught,
Returnes with precious lading to the Bay,
From whence at first she weigh'd her anchorage :
Conmieth Andronicus, bound with Lawrell bowes,
To resalute his country with his teares,
Teares of true joy for his returne to Rome."

Act i. sc. 1 (Booth's Reprint, p. 31, col. 2).

" Wilt thou draw neere the nature of the Gods 1
Draw neere them then in being mercifull,
Sweet mercy is Nobilities true badge.

Act i. sc. 1 (Booth's Reprint, p. 32, col. 1).

In this passage the note is struck that gives the key to Portia's
beautiful speech,

"The qu dity of mercy is not straiiiV."

Merchant of Venice, Act iv.

" Bassianu\ My lord, what I have done, as best I may,
Answere I must, and shall do with my life."

Act i. sc. 1 (Booth's Reprint, p. 34, col. 2).

" Titus. The hunt is up, the morne is bright and gray,
The fields are fragrant, and the woodes are greene,
Uncouple heere, and let us make a bay,
And wake the Emperour, and his lovely Bride,
And rouze the Prince, and ring a hunter's peale,
That all the Court may eccho,with the noyse."

Act ii. sc. 2 (Booth's Reprint, p. 36, col. 2).

" T amor a. My lovely Aaron,
Wherefore look'st thou sad,
When every thing doth make a gleefull boast 1
The birds chaunt melody on every bush,

128 DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. MR WHEATLEY ON TITUS ANDRONWUS.

The snake lies rolled in the chearefull sunne,
The greene leaves quiver with the cooling winde,
And make a cheker'd shadow on the ground."

Act ii. sc. 3 (Booth's Eeprint, p. 37, col. 1).

" Marcus. 0 that delightful engine of her thoughts,
That blab'd them with such pleasing eloquence,
Is torne from forth that pretty hollow cage,
Where, like a sweet mellodius bird, it sung
Sweet varied notes, inchanting every eare."

Act iii. sc. 1 (Booth's Reprint, p. 40, col. 2).

" Titus. It was my Deare,
And he that \vound[ed] her,
Hath hurt me more, than had he kild me dead :
For now I stand as one upon a rocke,
Inviron'd with a wildernesse of sea.
Who markes the waxing tide,
Grow wave by wave,
Expecting ever when some envious surge,
Will in his brinish1 bowels swallow him."

Act iii. sc. 1 (Booth's Reprint, p. 40, col. 2).

" Tamora. King, be thy thoughts imperious, like thy name.
Is the sunne dim'd that gnats do flie in it ?
The eagle suffers little birds to sing,
And is not carefull what they meane thereby,
Knowing that with the shadow of his wings,
He can at pleasure stint their melodie."

Act iv. sc. 4 (Booth's Reprint, p. 47, col 2).

" Titus. I am not mad ; I know thee well enough ;
Witnesse this wretched stump,
Witnesse these crimson lines,
Witnesse these Trenches made by griefe and care,
Witnesse the tyring day, and heavie night,
Witnesse all sorrow, that I know thee well
For our proud Empresse, mighty Tamora :
Is not thy comming for my other hand T'2

Act v. sc. 1 (Booth's Reprint, p. 49, coL 1).

" Lucius. Come hither, boy, come, come, and learne of us
To melt in showres : thy grandsire lov'd thee well :
Many a time, he danc'd thee on his knee :
Sung thee asleepe, his loving brest, thy pillow :

1 ' Brinish ' is one of the words noted by Mr Fleay as un-Shaksperian. It
is in TJie Rape of Lucrece, 1. 377 (see Mr FurnivaPs note above).

2 Coleridge suggested that this passage might be Shakspere's.

DISCUSSION. APRIL 24. MR WHEATLEY ON TITL'3 ANDRONICUS. 129

Many a matter hath he told to thec,

Meete and agreeing with thine infancie :

In that respect then, like a loving childe,

Shed yet some small drops from thy tender spring,

Because kinde nature doth require it so."

Act v. sc. 3 (Booth's Reprint, p. 52, col. 1).

We may well ask the repudiators of this play to tell us, if Shak-
epere did not write these and other as poetical passages, who it was
that had been so successful in imitating the flow of Shaksperian
verse at a time when Shakspere had not made a sufficient name to
be an object of imitation ]

TRANSACTIONS.

130

IV. ON THE AUTHORSHIP OF TIMON OF ATHENS.

BY THE REV. F. G. FLEAY, M.A.

PAET I. (1874.)
(Head at the Society's Fourth Meeting, on May 8, 1874.)

SYMPSON, Knight, and others have held that this play is not
entirely the work of Shakspere : but they have, so far as I know, all
proceeded on the hypothesis that Shakspere took up an older work
of an inferior writer, and founded on it our present play, by re
touching, rewriting, and interpolating new scenes. The object of
the present paper is to shew that the nucleus, the original and only
valuable part of the play, is Shakspere's ; and that it was completed
for the stage by a second and inferior hand.

Before going into details as to metre, &c., I will examine the
scenes of the play in order : In Act i. Sc. 1, I find nothing that we
can reject except the prose parts, 1. 186 — 248, and 1. 266 — 283.
The former of these is exactly in the same style as other prose talk
with Apemantus, which we shall presently see must be rejected : it
is bald, cut up, and utterly unlike the speeches of the same person
ages in the other parts of the same scene ; and above all, it has
nothing to do with the plot, and does not advance the story a step :
the latter bit is clearly parenthetical : after Timon has said, " Let us
in ! " one of the rest who entered with Alcibiades says, " Come,
shall we in ? and taste L. Timon's bountie ? " and after a little con
versation, he and his friend, another of the rest, go in together. So
I think Shakspere arranged it : his alterer empties the stage of all
but Apemantus, who stays in order to " drop after all discontentedly
like himself" in the next scene : but as there was a bit of Shakspere
to be used up (and we shall see that he could not afford to lose a line,
for reasons to be given hereafter), the alterer brings in two extra
Lords to talk to Apemantus, so that, after all, Apemantus has no
opportunity of leaving the stage discontentedly like himself. This

iv. SIIAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT. 131

is too clumsy for Shakspere, whether doing his own work, or vamp
ing another man's. The prose therefore in this scene I reject : the
verse, which all hangs together, I retain : it is Shakspere's cer
tainly ; for instance —

All those which were his fellowes but of late,
Some better than his valew, on the moment
Follow his strides, his Lobbies Jill with tendance,
Maine Sacrijiciall whisperings in his eaer,
Make Sacred euen his styrrop, and through him
Drinke the free Ay re.

Act i. Sc. 2, on the other hand, has not a trace of Shakspere in
it. Yentigius (who is called Ventidius in the Shakspere part of the
play) offers to repay the 5 talents advanced by Timon, and tells of the
death of his father. This is certainly not known to the author of the
last part of Act ii. Sc. 2, where the information as to Ventidius's father
is given again, but no allusion is made to Ventidius's offer. Timon
quotes hackneyed Latin : the whole scene is inferior, and leaves the
story unadvanced, and it contains the first mention of Lords Lucius
and Lucullus, of whom, with their worthy colleague Sempronius,
there is no notice in the original part of the play. The steward
also, or at any rate some one who talks very like the steward of the
2nd author's scenes, is here called Flavius, and here only. But in
Act ii. Sc. 2, Flavius is given by Shakspere as the name of one of
Timon's servants who is not the steward. As to the poor humour,
poorer metre, and wretched general style of this scene, I need say
nothing : it is manifest on a mere cursory reading, but I give a
specimen of the poetry, the best I can find.

He commands vs to prowide, and giue great guifts,

and all out of an empty Coffer :
Nor will he know his Purse, or yeeld me this,
To sheio him what a Begger his heart is,
Being of no power to make his icishes good.
His promises flye so beyond his state,

That what he speaks is all in debt : he owis for every word ;
He is so kind that he now pays interest for 't,
His Land's put to their Bookes.

132 iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TLVON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT.

However fine this may be, it is certainly not in the style of
Shakspere, or of the preceding scene.

But in Act ii. Sc. 1 we come on the genuine play again.

For I do feare,

When every Feather stickes in his own wing,
Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,
Which flashes now a Phoenix.
There is the true ring in this.

Act ii. Sc. 2 is also genuine, except the prose part, 1. 46 — 131,
and 195 — 204. "When Timon has demanded an explanation of the
steward, and the steward has desired the duns to cease their im
portunity till after dinner, he adds to them, " Pray you walk neere !
lie speak with you anon ; " and straightway gives the explanation
desired : but the playwright who improved the drama wanted
Apemantus to talk nonsense to the Page and Fool of a harlot (un
known in the rest of the piece) : so he makes the steward say,
" Pray draw neere ! " and go out with Timon, apparently to have
out their explanation. Caphis and Co. do not draw neere, but stop
to talk to Apemantus. When we've had enough of that, in come
Timon and the steward, who again says, "Pray you walk neere,"
which the creditors do this time, and Timon and the steward go on
with their talk as if they had never left the stage to say anything
outside. This prose part must be accepted or rejected along with
the prose in Act i. Sc. 1.

The other smaller bit is also evidently an insertion. Timon is
going to try his friends : he calls for Flavius and Servilius, his
servants ; they come ; he says he will despatch them severally : ac
cordingly, he tells one to go to Sempronius the other to Ventidius.
But the second author, having already in a previous scene intro
duced Lords Lucius and Lucullus by name, now adds Sempronius to
them, increases the number of servants to three, sends them off to
these three Lords, and leaves the messages to the Senators and
Ventidius for the steward.

"Note also .that he sends to each of these friends for 50 talents a
piece : but I do not enter on the question of the moneys in this part
of my paper. It is sufficient here to mention that the verse part of

iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT. 133

the scene is pure Shakspere. No one else could have written it.
The " drunken spilth of wine," the " one cloud of Winter showres,
These flyes are coucht," the " halfe-caps and cold mouing nods, They
froze me into silence," bear the lawful stamp of his mintage.

But next come three short scenes in which we find the three
servants, Flaminius, Servilius, and Anonymous, applying to Lords
Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius, in detail ; but the most dramatic
situation of all, the application of the steward (Flavius, according to
this writer) to Yentigius, is not given, only alluded to. In these
scenes there is not a spark of Shakspere's poetry, not a vestige of
his style ; and they are inseparably tied up with the prose bit in
Act ii. Sc. 2, which we have just rejected. As a specimen of style,
take the following, arranged to show the monotony of the pauses.

Why, this is the worlds soule ;
And iust of the same peece
Is euery Flatterers sport.
Who can call him his Friend,
That dips in the same dish ?

And in Act iii. Sc. 4, where the creditors again dun Timon, there
is no trace of Shakspere. Timon gets in a vulgar passion ; he bids
to a banquet the three apocryphal Lords, Lucius, Lucullus, and
Sempronius ; the rest of the scene is taken up with the talk of the
creditors' servants, who can rhyme much more easily than the best-
educated personages in the Shakspere part of the play, and are thus
far poetic, if not dramatic. I need give no specimen of their
speeches : they speak the same dialect, and use the same rhetoric, as
all the characters of the second author ; any speech of any one might
be spoken by any other, so far as the language and form of expres
sion are concerned. It will suffice to give a bit from the Alcibiades
of the next scene, which is one wholly by the vamper.

Why do fond men expose themselues to Battell
And not endure all threats ? Sleepe vpon '#,
And let the Foes quietly cut their Throats

Without repugnancy ? If there le

Such Valour in the bearing, what make wee abroad ?

134 iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHEKS POINTED OUT.

I am tired of reiterating that these scenes by author the second add
nothing to the progress of the play.

But I must notice the difference in the enumeration of the
servants here and in Act ii. Sc. 2. In the earlier scene the only
ones present are Caphis and the servants of Isidore and Yarro ; in
the latter there are Lucius, Titus, Hortensis, Philotus, and Varro's
two men (unnecessary doubling, a sure sign of inferiority) ; and it is
expressly stated in the stage direction that all Timon's creditors are
present. This scene cannot have emanated from the same hand as
the former ; but the former agrees with other portions of the Shak-
spere part of the play, the latter scene does not. Compare, for in
stance, Act ii. Sc. 1. To Varro and to Isidore, and a little further
on, Caphis hoa ! which exhausts the Shaksperian list. But to
pass on.

In Act iii. Sc. 6 Timon's speech is certainly Shakspere's ; for

example : —

This is Timons last.

[He] Who stucJce and spangled you with Flatteries,
Washes it off, and sprinkles in your faces
Your reeking villany.

An inferior author would not have thought of the flattery Tinion had
used to his false friends, but of their adulations to him, and would

have written

" Spangled with your flatteries."

But the rest of the scene is (as Mr Furnivall pointed out to me
when I could not see my way clearly in this scene) certainly not
Shakspere's. It is a muddle. There seem to be two Lords on the
stage at first, (taken from the two in Act i. Sc. 1,) whom Tim on calls
" gentlemen both " / the other Lords who speak after must be part
of his u attendants " ; there are senators who don't speak at all.
Timon throws warm water at them, which apparently freezes before
it reaches them, so that they feel it on their bones, and are pelted
with stones, like the guests in the old Timon play, which Shakspere,
v I feel sure, never read.

From this point onward I shall notice only the added portions.
The Shakspere parts are not only his, but his of his best style ; so

iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT. 135

distinctively his that any one with ears as good as an ordinary
schoolboy's will recognize them at once. In Act iv. Sc. 2 the
soliloquy of Flavius, lines 29 — 50, is not Shakspere's. It is in the
rhythm of the second playwright, and is inseparably connected with
Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 463 — 543, which is certainly an added part. I am
ashamed to say that I rejected most carelessly the whole of this
scene in my original paper in 1868. For the correction I am again
indebted to Mr Furnivall, whose opinion Mr Tennyson has con
firmed.

The next piece to be omitted is Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 292 — 362,
which is written in the same chopt-up prose as the Apemantus-
parts which we have omitted before ; it also interferes with the
sense. Timon says, " Gold sleeps here, and does no hired harm :
here is the truest use for gold." Apemantus answers, " Thou art
the cap of all the fools alive." But our cobbling playwright makes
him answer, " Where liest o' nights, Timon 1 " and we are ex
pected by the supporters of Mr Knight's theory — Mr Spedding, for
instance — to believe that in this, and the many other instances
pointed out above, Shakspere, working up an old play, has left all
these gross and clumsy sutures unclosed ! But above all, in this bit
Apemantus tells Timon — " Yonder comes a poet and a painter."
They talk for 60 lines, and then enter — Banditti ! more talk with
Banditti 63 lines, and then enter — Steward ! more talk (80 lines),
and then at last enter " poet and painter ! " To avoid this, modern
editors make the curtain fall when the steward goes out ; but this
makes matters worse ; the poet and painter must be then " coming
yonder," not only while that interminable talk goes on, but while
the curtain is down : imagine this to be Shakspere's arrangement !
But suppose the curtain does not fall ] Then the poet and painter
enter as the steward goes out : and one of the first things they tell
us is that " 'tis said he gave unto his steward a mighty sum." No,
as the play stands, the curtain must fall in the middle of a scene,
and the poet and painter wait yonder all the while. This point alone
settles the question of the present arrangement being Shakspere's.

But cut out the prose parts in these scenes, or this scene rather,
and all is right. Omit 1. 292—362; 1. 398—413; 1. 453—543 ;

136 iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT.

and Act v. Sc. 1, 1. 1 — 57. In this scene we also omit the talk with
the steward which is aesthetically contrary to the whole drift of the
play. Had Timon been convinced that there was one "just and
comfortable man," he would have ceased to be misanthropes, and
would not have concluded his interview with —

Ne'er see thou man, and let me ne'er see thee,
In style also it agrees with our botcher.

0 you Gods !

Is yon'd despis'd and ruinous man my Lord ?

Full of decay and fayling ? Oh Monument

And wonder of good deeds euilly bestow' 'd f ~.

What an alteration of Honor has desp'rate want made ?

This, and the like all through ! Enough.

But I must warn the Reader in comparing these passages with
Shakspere to take them as they stand in the folio, before they have
been Poped and Theobalded and Walkered, into somewhat of a
pseudo-Shaksperian form. The only other bit I would reject is,
Act v. Sc. 3, where the Soldier who can't read, reads an Epitaph
which is not written, and gives us the most useless and superfluous
information of his own afterwards. Thus much then for the division
I make of the play between the writers. I spare the reader any
comment of mine on the unity of the Shakspere work so separated ;
it is printed for him by itself: if he wants to feel the dislocated
corduroy road one has to travel over in reading the other writer's
work by itself, it is a slight task to mark his work in any edition
of the play as generally printed, and read it separately.

But I have only done one part of my work. I have next to
show how this curious treatment of a play of Shakspere^s came to
be adopted. His share of the play was written undoubtedly
about 1606. Delius places it with Pericles rightly. The rhyme
test places it there also. But I believe that Timon differs from the
others in not being finished in Shakspere's lifetime at all, though
I do not advance this as certain, but as probable only. The play

iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT. 137

is printed in the Folio next to Romeo and Juliet, and is paged SO,
81, 82, and then 81, 82 over again, then 83, &c., to 98 ; then follow
a leaf unpaged, with the Actors' names printed on one side, and
Julius Ccesar. Now the play of Troylus and Cressida, which is not
mentioned at all in the Index (' Catalogue ') of the Folio, is paged
79 and 80 in its 2nd and 3rd pages, and was evidently intended at
first to follow in its proper place as the pendant or comparison play
to Romeo and Juliet. But as this play was originally called " The
History of Troylus and Cressida " (so in the Quarto Edition), and
as there is really nothing tragical in the main bulk of it, it was
doubted if it could be put with the Tragedies, so the editors of the
Folio compromised the matter by putting it between the Histories
and Tragedies, and not putting it at all in the Catalogue, though they
still retained their first title for it as " the tragedie of Troylus and
Cressida." This space, then, of pp. 80 — 108, which would have
just held the Troylus and Cressida, being left unfilled, it became
necessary to fill it. But if, as I conjecture, all the following plays
from Julius Ccesar to Cymbeline were already in type, and had been
printed off, there was nothing to fall back on but Pericles and the
unfinished Timon. I have given reasons in my paper on Pericles
for believing that the Editors would not have considered it respectful
to Shakspere's memory to publish the Pericles ; they therefore took
the incomplete Timon, put it into a playwright's hands, and told him
to make it up to 30 pages. Hence the enormous amount of padding
and bombast in his part of the work : hence the printing of prose in
cut-up into short lines as if it were verse, which is a very common
characteristic of spurious or otherwise irregular editions : — hence the
Dumas style of dialogue so frequent in the Apemantus parts : hence
the hurry that left uncorrected so many contradictions, and unfilled
so many omissions. The hypothesis is bold even to impudence ; but
it accounts for the phenomena, and no other can I find that will.

Having, then, laid down as certain the division of the play, and
the assignment of the nucleus to Shakspere, and, as probable, the
manner in which the play came to be so composed, we come to the
more difficult question still — who was the second author? The

138 iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT.

ratio of rhyme to blank verse, the irregularities of length (lines with
four accents and initial monosyllabic feet), number of double endings
&c., agree with only one play of all that I have analyzed (over 200),
viz., the Revenger's Tragedy. But I am doubtful as to pressing this
argument very strongly, unless we give up (as I am quite ready to
do) the notion of the play being finished in 1623, as the Revenger's
Tragedy was written in 1607. The evidence of general style, however,
appears to me strongly to confirm the conjecture that Cyril Tourneur
was the second author. If we could find out the date of his death,
it might help to determine the question as to when his part was
written : but, so far as I know, there is no reason whatever why he
should not have written it in either 1608 or in 1623.

This bit seems to me exactly in the metre of Shakspere's recaster.

In the morning

When they are up and drest, and their mask on,
Who can perceive this save that eternal eye,
Tliat sees thro' flesh and all. Well, if any thing be damrfd,
It will be twelve oj clock at night, that twelve will never 'scape.
Revenger's Tragedy, p. 322 (Dodsley's Edition).

Tourneur quotss Latin too : —

Curse leves loquuntur, majores stupent.
He writes in the Dumas dialogue : —

Duke. My teeth are eaten out.

Vind. Had'st any left ?

Hip. / think but few,

Vind. Then those that did eat are eaten,

Duke. 0 my tongue! $c. (p. 354.)

Sometimes there is a whole page like this.

Here again is a bit just in the style of metre we want : —

'Tis well he died; he was a witch.

And now, my lord, since we are in for ever,

The work was ours which else might have been slipt,

And, if we list, we could have nobles dipt,

And go for less than beggers : but we hate

To bleed so cowardly : we have enough,

iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT. 139

/' faith we're well, our mother turn'd, our sister true,
We die after a nest of dukes, adieu, (p. 384.)
But with less than extracting the whole play, I cannot expect
to produce conviction on this point ; and I have already taken as
much space as can be afforded now. I subjoin the numerical data
for the metrical examination of The Revenger's Tragedy as near as I
can count them in such a badly printed edition, as we yet have.
Total STo. of lines, over 2400.

No. of rhyming lines exactly 460.

double endings „ 443.

Alexandrines „ 22.

Deficient and short lines about 125.

For the data of the metre of Timon, and other arguments derived
from the sums mentioned (50 talents, &c.), and similar statistical
matters, I refer to Part II. of this paper, which contains nothing
opposed to my present views except that I have transferred since
three prose bits from, and one verse bit to, Shakspere.1 This
Part II. is reprinted as it stood in 1869, for reasons given in the note
on its first page. The additional matter given in this Part I. formed
part of my first essay on the subject, which was remodelled into the
present form of Part II. at the request of Mr P. A. Daniel in 1868.

I have only to add that the essential part of this Paper is the
proof that the Shakspere part of this play was written before the
other part : the theory how this came to be done is accessory and
unimportant. If any one likes to believe as I did in 1869 that the
unfinished play of Shakspere was given to another theatre-poet to
finish in 1606-7, he is welcome to his belief: he avoids some diffi
culties and incurs others. But that Knight's theory as held by
Delius, &c., is untenable, I hold to be proven : the un-Shaksperian
parts were certainly the latest written.

F. G. FLEAY.
1 Two of these alterations are due to Mr Furnivall.

140

ON THE AUTHORSHIP OF TIMON OF ATHENS.1

BY THE EEV. F. G. FLEAY, M.A.

PAKT II. (1869.)

(Head at the fourth Meeting of the Society, held on Friday, May 8, 1874.)
THIS question is so intricate, and involves considerations of so
many kinds, that I shall, for the purpose of making the argument
clear, pursue a somewhat irregular course in its arrangement. I
shall first submit to the reader, in a tabular form, the results that I
have arrived at after a careful and prolonged investigation of the
question. This table is grounded on an examination of every line
of the play, one by one, as regards the metre ; on a specific analysis
of the plot with regard to the bearing of each scene or portion of a
scene on every other } and on a minute examination of the Folio of
1623, with regard to the printing and spelling of proper names, stage
directions, &c., which have been altered by modern editors, without
authority and on (I think) insufficient grounds. The first portion of
the subjoined table shows in parallel columns the parts of the play
which I believe to be undoubtedly Shakspere's, and those which I
assign to a second author : the other portion gives a metrical analysis
of the lines assigned to each.

It will be observed that I have divided the Scenes into five dis
tinct portions, other than the Aot-and-Scene division; and have
marked these A, B, C, D, E, F. This arrangement I believe to be that
which Shakspere intended for his Act-divisions ; but, at present, I
wish it to be regarded only as a convenient arrangement for purposes
of reference in this discussion.

1 This Paper was written in 1868 by Mr Fleay, and sent in 1869 to Mr W.
G. Clark of Trinity College, Cambridge, the senior of the joint-editors of the
Cambridge Shakspere. In his rooms it remained till yesterday, when his
friend, Mr W. Aldis Wright, took it out, and posted it to me. It reacht me
this morning, Wednesday, April 8, 1874, and I post it at once to Mr Childs, to
print for The New Shakspere Society's Transactions. This course is taken
because Mr Fleay heard in 1870 that a German critic had publisht a Paper
for the German Shakspere Society, in which he took a similar view of Timon
to that which Mr Fleay had before taken. The German critic's views may,
after all, be very different from those expresst in the present Paper ; but Mr Fleay
Wishes, in any case, to avoid the charge of plagiarism. — F. J. Furnivall.

iv. SIIAKSPEUE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT. '141
SHAKSPEKE. UNKNOWN.

Act.

Scene.

Liue.

Act.

Scene.

Line.

A

I.

I

1-293

A

I.

2

1-257

B

II.

I

i-35

2

1-193

fi

II.

2

194-204

205-242

III.

I

1-66

2

1-94

3

1-42

4

I-I19

C

5

I-II7

C

III.

6

1-131

D

IV.

I

1-41

D

IV.

2

1-50

E

3

1-291

6 8

E

3

292-362

399-413

4H-453

454-543

V.

I

1-50

V.

i

50-118

F

119-231

2

1-17

F

3

I-IO

4

1-85

METKICAL TABLE.

Prose.

Blank.

Irregular

Rhymes.

1. 1

*58

208

25

2

11. I

31

2

2

2

*85

133

8

6

III. 6

"in

12

2

6

IV. I

33

2

6

IV. 3

339

28

2

V. i

162

14

6

2

H

2

4

77

4

4

254 1009 86 36

Prose.

Blank.

Irregular

Rhymes.

I. 2

64

126

21

36

II. 2

II

III. I

49

II

3

2

2

58

30

2

4

3

8

19

9

6

4

18

78

12

8

5

*73

14

3°

IV. 2

4

10

3

85

53

9

18

V. i

46

4

3

5

I

4

339 44i 75 122

* But see Part I. F. G. Fleay.

142 iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT.

It will conduce to ease of comprehension, if we begin with the
latter divisions ; as the difficulties in the end of the play are easier
to examine than the early ones. We commence, therefore, with F.

In F, there is only one passage at all doubtful ; the rest coheres,
is in one style ; and that style is certainly Shakspere's. The doubt
ful piece is Act v. Sc. 3. The objections are :

F.— 1. Lines 3, 4,

" Timon is dead, who hath out-lived his span :
Some beast read this ! There does not live a man."

must be — in spite of the alteration of read into reared, as proposed
by Warburton — intended for Timon's epitaph. In this case we
have a Soldier, who "cannot read" (1. 6), first reading, and then
taking in wax, an inscription, which, in Sc. 4, turns out to be quito
different.

F.— 2. The "Soldier" of this scene is the "Messenger" of Sc. 4.
This would be of little importance, but as it is (as we shall see) only
one instance of several in this play, of a like kind, the cumulative
weight of the whole becomes considerable.

F. — 3. The last four lines, telling us that Alcibiades (" our cap
tain "), an aged interpreter, young in days, makes the fall of Athens
the mark of his ambition, which fact we knew scenes ago, cannot be
Shakspere's.

E. — From Act iv. Sc. 3 to Act v. Sc. 1, 1. 118, must be in one
scene. There is no possibility of a break in the Acts, unless a very
awkward one at " Exit Alcibiades " (as arranged by modern editors) ;
for, as the text stands, Apemantus (iv. 3, 1. 356) sees the poet and
painter coming ; and the curtain cannot be allowed to fall without
their presenting themselves. In the Folio there is no division into
Acts or Scenes. I imagine the inordinate length of the scene, and
the extreme shortness of Act v., are the chief reasons for the modern
division. In this division (E) the omissions fall into two sections :

(1) The Steward part. ("Flavius" is an alteration of the editors.)

(2) The prose portions with Apemantus, Banditti, and Poet and
Painter.

(1)1 leave till I treat of D. (2) includes :

iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT. 143

iv. 3, 1. 292, ' where liest,1 &c., to iv. 3, 1. 362, ' Apemantus.'
iv. 3, 1. 399, 'where should,' &c., to iv. 3, 1. 413, 'know him.'
iv. 3, 1. 454, 'Has almost,' &c., to iv. 3, 1. 463, 'true.'

v. 1, 1. 1, 'As I.' to v. 3, 1. 50, 'the turn.'

No w these are by no means to be objected to as prose : there is i
plenty of prose in the Shakspere part of this play : though not, I
think, prose so utterly different in feeling from all the rest of the
scene, as in this instance. The objections are :

E. — 1. iv. 3, 292, &c., is parenthetical. " Where liest o'nights ? "
is no answer to "here it [gold] sleeps and does no hired harm." Eut
" thou art the cap of all the fools alive " fits well.

E. — 2. 1. 356. A poet and painter are announced as in sight ;
they do not come in for nearly 200 lines ; but Banditti and Flavius,
who apparently are not in sight, come first.

E. — 3. Timon's long prose speech, 11. 329 — 349, is utterly unlike
any other speech of his in the play, and bears strong marks of infe
rior writing.

E. — 4. The Banditti have heard it ' noised ' that Timon has gold :
not from Apemantus, who has only left the stage one line since ;
therefore, from Alcibiades or the women. Apemantus threatens to
spread the rumour, and does not ; the women do not threaten, and
do spread the rumour. This is very clumsy.

E. — 5. In v. 1, which is certainly a continuation of the same scene,
the poet and painter have not only heard the rumour, but they know
exactly all Timon's visitors : Alcibiades, the women, the " soldiers,"
and the steward who has just left the stage ; they only know " 'tis
said," however, so they did not see him go. We avoid Scylla, cer
tainly, by allowing the curtain to fall at the end of iv. 3. But
Charybdis is then inevitable. The poet and painter must have been
coming, and in sight, all through Sc. 3, from 1. 356 to the end, and
while the curtain is down.

E. — 6. Phrynia and Timandra are called Phrym'ce and Timan^Zo.
This is one among several instances, tending to show that the second
author worked on a badly-written MS. of Shakspere's portion.

E. — 7. The whole style of these parts is mean and poor ; reading
E without them, and then any of these portions, the discrepancy is

144 iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT.

at once manifest. Note specially the couplets in v. 1, 43 — 49, which
are thoroughly unlike Shakspere.

Next, take the two Steward bits, iv. 2, and iv. 3, 463 to end. I
shall mark the objections to these, D.

D. — 1. The style of these, and especially the metre, is utterly
unlike anything in the other plays of Shakspere. It is marked by
great irregularity, many passages refusing to be orthodox, even under
torture ; it abounds in rhymes, in emphatic and unemphatic passages
alike; the rhymes are often preceded by incomplete lines; one of
the rhyming lines is frequently imperfect or Alexandrine. This
style was introduced by Webster, and followed by Tourneur, who
are the chief masters therein. It has some considerable power in
these authors' own class of subjects — the horrible — as in the Dutchess
of Malfy, or the Revenger's Tragedy ; but is utterly unsuitable here.
Where the Steward enters in the genuine parts, viz. ii. 2, and v. 1,
the style is Tery different.

D. — 2. iv. 3, 476. Has for he has.

Exactly the same reasoning applies to C (iii. 5).

C, D, I reject on internal evidence of style and metre ; see the
metrical table, and also the general considerations at the end of this
essay.

Our next batch B (ii. 1 — iii. 5) is the most difficult of all.

B. — 1 . In the genuine parts of the play,

£ s. d.
i. 1, 95 ) Ventidius borrows 5 talents

>

ii. 2, 235 ) Same amount is "instant due," ii. 2, 238
ii. 1, 141 Lucilius's dowry is 3 talents 722 50

ii. 1, 1-3 Timon owes 25,000 (pieces?) 4062 10 0(?)

ii. 2, 208 Proposes to borrow 1000 talents (?) 245,750 0 0

iii. 6, 23 Has asked of a Lord 1000 pieces 162 10 0(?)

In the other parts,
ii. 2, 201 \ Timon sends to Lords for 50 talents 12,187 10 0

iii. 1, 19 ) KB. There are 3 sums of this amount.

iii. 2 ; 13, 26, 41. " So many" talents are mentioned.

iii. 2, 43 5500 talents (?) 1,340,625 0 0

or if we read 50,500 121,875 00

iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT. 145

£ s. d.

iii. 4, 28 Due to Varro, 3000 crowns 487 10 0

iii. 4; 29, 96 Due to Lucius, 5000 crowns 812 10 0

iii. 4, 94 Due to Titus, 50 talents 12,187 10 0

iii. 1, 46 Lucullus offers Flaminius 3 solidares.

The Attic talent is £243 15s. Qd. ; the largest silver coin in Greece
was the tetradrachm (3s. 3d.) ; I have taken this for the " crowns "
and " pieces." The value of silver (Greek standard coinage) has, of
course, much diminished ; but ] 5 talents was reckoned a fair fortune
for the elder Demosthenes to leave his son ; — the sum of 150 talents,
for which Timon sends to the Lords, viz. £36,562 10s. Qd., is, of
course, absurd : still more so is the simultaneous application of the
creditors for such discrepant sums (iii. 4, 30). Five thousand crowns
(£800) is said to be "much deep," yet another creditor demands
£12,000. If it be said the sums are indefinite, and not Greek
money at all, I answer that this may be true for the second writer,
but not for Shakspere ; for he clearly drew part of his account from /
Lucian, who distinctly mentions all the Greek moneys — the drachma,
the mina, and the talent.

The " so many " talents of iii. 2, and the " fifty-five hundred "
in the same scene, look like the work of a man who had some mis
givings as to his previous amount of 50 talents; but was finally
too hurried to remember to alter it. Note, in iii. 2, no amount is
given.

The thousand talents (more than a quarter of a million sterling)
in ii. 2, is in any case absurd. I would read 1000^'eces, believing
talents to have come in after the second writer had inserted ii. 2, 201,
to make the amount demanded of the senators larger than that from
a private lord. The senators, however, are mere usurers. Timon
owes two of them 9000 in ii. 1, and usury is an accusation brought
against them by Alcibiades in iii. 5, 108. Neither does the "joint
and corporate voice " mean that they acted as the senate ; but simply
that they were unanimous in refusing Timon's request, viz. of 1000
pieces each; as we learn from iii. 6, 23. With this emendation, all
in the genuine parts is clear, and the amounts are reasonable ; in the
other parts we have a mass of inconsistency.

TRANSACTIONS- 10

14G iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT.

B. — 2. The only creditors of Timon in the Shakspere part of the
play, are, Caphis's master, Yarro, and Isidore. In the other parts
they are, Yarro, Lucius, Titus, Hortensius, and Philotus.

B. — 3. The lords Lucullus, Lucius, and Sempronius occur in i. 2,
ii. 2 (rejected part), iii. 1, 2, 3, and iii. 4, but never in the genuine
parts. They are not the same as the Lords in i. 2 (who seem to "be
meant for the same as those in i. 1), but I imagine are intended to
be three of the Lords in iii. 5 (Yentidius being the other), seeing that
they and " Ullorxa " (] Yentidius) have been bidden by Timon, iii.
4, 112; and that they, as well as the Lords in iii. 6, have been
asked for loans. But this is incompatible with the supposition of
these parts and iii. 6, being by one writer. He would certainly have
given the names in iii. 6 as well as in all the other scenes.

B. — 4. Yentidius in i. 1, and ii. 2, is spelled Yentidius or Yen-
tiddius ; in ii. 1 and iii. 3, Yentigius or Yentidgius. I think this
points to the same conclusion as E 6.

B. — 5. The servants of the dunning scene, ii. 2, agree with the
names of the masters in ii. 1 ; but not with those of iii. 4. See
B2.

B. — 6. Flaminius and Servilius, Timon's servants, occur only in
connection with Lucius and Co. ; never in the Shakspere parts,
where the servants are all anonymous — just as the senators, lords, or
friends are.

B. — 7. Great poverty of invention is shown in iii. 2, 38-41, which
repeats iii. 1, 16-21.

B. — 8. In ii. 2, 20, the writer knows the Greek days for paying
debts, the vovprjvta, and surely he would know the Greek money
too.

B. — 9. In ii. 2, there is a servant called Flavius, who talks very
like the steward in iii. 4, iv. 2, and iv. 3, though not so like the
steward of ii. 2 and v. 1. He has however been identified with the
steward by the modern editors, and perhaps by the second .writer ;
but if so, it must have been by an afterthought, as- in ii. 2, 194, lie
is summoned by Timon "Within 'there! Flavius-! Servilius}" The
editors, against all metre, but determined to perform the impossible
feat of making the play, as it stands, self-consistent, alter Flavius to

iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT. 147

Flaminius. I feel sure that the third servant in iii. 3, was originally
meant to be Flavius. The stage direction in ii. 2, is " Enter 3 Serv-
vants." I fancy the original reading was " Within there ! Flavius,
Servilius, Flaminius ! " but after the second writer had altered the
Steward into Flavius, he struck out the name in iii. 3, and meant
to do so in ii. 2, but, in his hurry, struck out the wrong name. He
seems very fond of the number three ; he has 3 strangers, 3 lords,
twice 3 creditors, &c.

A. I reject i. 2, on the same grounds as iii. 5, iv. 2, &c. See
D 1 also.

A. — 1. The hack Latin quotation, " Ira furor brevis est," is not at
all in Shakspere's style. We find similar ones in Hen. VL, Taming
of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus ; but where in Shakspere ?

A. — 2. Yentidius offers to return the 5 talents lent by Timon (i. 2,
1 — 8) in consequence of coming into his inheritance ; yet in the end
of ii. 2, Timon tells us this latter fact over again, without any allusion
to Ventidius' offer in i. 2. This is not like Shakspere's work.

A. — 3. Apemantus, sometimes misprinted Apermantus in other
scenes, is so all through this one ; this again looks as if the MS. of
Shakspere was badly written : it quite deceives the second writer,
and occasionally the printer.

I have now given a number of reasons why each of the passages
in the 2nd column of our table is not by Shakspere. Let us next
consider some points which affect the whole play.

I. The play is, in its present state, unique among Shakspere's for
its languid, wearisome want of action. This renders it one of the
least read of all his works. But this fault is due entirely to the pas
sages which I assign to the 2nd writer, not one of which adds any
thing to the development of the plot, for they are in every instance
mere expansions of facts mentioned in the genuine parts of the play.
Thus the germ of

i. 2 is in i. 1, 270, &c.,
of iii. 1—3 „ ii. 2, 192,
of iii. 4 „ ii. 2,
of iii. 5 „ iii. 6, 61,
and the added parts of iv. and v. are merely padding to fill out the

148 iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT.

deficiency in quantity. The Shakspere part is complete in itself, and
never flags at all.

II. The whole of the brief account in Plutarch is contained in
the Shakspere parts ; which also have the two allusions to Lucian's
dialogue, viz. the beating out the Poet and Painter, and " Plutus the
god of gold is his steward," i. 1, 287.

III. The rhythm of the two portions of the play differs in every
respect. The Shakspere parts are in his 3rd style (like Lear), with
great freedom in the rhythm, some 4 and 6 syllable lines, some
Alexandrines with proper caesuras, and rhymes where the emphasis
is great, at the end of scenes, and occasionally of speeches in other
places. The other parts have irregularities, both in defect and ex
cess, of every possible kind. There are lines of 8 and 9 syllables,
Alexandrines without caesura, imperfect lines in rhyming couplets,
broken lines preceding rhymes, and other peculiarities, not one of
all which is admitted in Shakspere's rhythmical system, i. 2, end,
is one of many instances of intolerably bad rhythm :

I'll lock thy heaven from thee.
0 that men's ears should be
To counsel deaf, but not to flattery !

One point in the metre may appear clearer if expressed statistically.
In the Shakspere parts the proportion of blank verse to rhyme is as
280 to 10 ; in the other parts as 36 to 10 ; in other words, there are
proportionally 8 times as many rhymes in the latter as in the former.

IV. If, as I suppose, the 2nd writer worked on an unfinished
play of Shakspere's, his additions ought to be more or less fragment
ary, and Shakspere's should contain the main plot. If, as some have
conjectured, the converse was the case, we ought to have converse
results. Now our first column appears to me to contain the complete
story, and to have been intended by Shakspere to be read as follows :

I. Act. Timon's prosperity, i. 1 of present play.

II. „ Debts and Duns, ii. 1, 2, of present play.

III. „ Farewell to Athens, iii. 6, iv. 1, of present play.

IV. „ Cave life, iv. 3 (part), v. 1 (1—118), of present play.
V. „ Death and indirect revenge through Alcibiades, v. 1

(119-231); v. 2; v. 4; of present play.

iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT. 149

In I. I have already pointed out on what portions of the genuine
work the other is founded ; the fragmentary nature of the spurious
work can only be appreciated on continuous reading.

V. In the Cambridge edition the following notice is given : —

" Timon of Athens was printed for the first time in Folio, 1623."
It " occupies 21 pages, from 80 to 98 inclusive, 81 and 82 being
numbered twice over. After 98 the next page is filled with The
Actors' names, and the following page is blank. The next page, the
first of Julius Ccesar, is numbered 109, and instead of beginning, as
it should, signature ii, the signature is kk. From this it may be
inferred that for some reason the printing of Julius Ccesar was com
menced before that of Timon was finished. It may be that the MS.
of Timon was imperfect, and that the printing was stayed till it
could be completed by some playwright, engaged for the purpose.
This would account for the manifest imperfections at the close of the
play. But it is difficult to conceive how the printer came to mis
calculate so widely the space required to be left.

"The well-known carelessness of the printers of the Folio, in
respect of metre, will not suffice to account for the deficiencies of
Timon. The original play, on which Shakspere worked, must have
been written, for the most part, either in prose or in very irregular
verse." — CAMBRIDGE EDITORS.

On this I have to observe, that if there is, in supposing the
printer miscalculated the space to be left, a difficulty on my hypothe
sis, the difficulty is certainly not lessened by supposing that the
whole of the play was in the printer's hands from the first. In no
other instance do the printers give a whole leaf to the actors' names ;
in only one other do they give a whole page ; and they never insert
the actors' names at all, except for the purpose of filling a blank
space.* This looks as if the writer or printer were hard up for mate
rial ; which is confirmed by the way in which the prose is printed
(in the second writer's part only), as irregular verse ; so as to fill a
third more space than it would otherwise.

I append a list of the actors for reference.

* But see Part I.— F. G. Fleay.

150 iv. SHAKSPERE'S SHARE IN TIMON OF ATHENS POINTED OUT.

IN SHAKSPERE'S PART.
*Timon.
*Apemantus.
*Alcibiades.
*Ventidius.
* Steward.
tPoet.
tPainter.
tThieves.

Jeweller.

Merchant.

Athenian.

Lucilius.

Caphis.

Varro's servant.

Isidore's servant.

4 Lords.
JPage.
JFool.

Phrynia.

Timandra.

SECOND WRITER.

Lucius.

Lucullus.

Sempronius.

Flaminius.

Flavius.

Servilius.

3 Strangers.

Titus.

Hortensius.

Philotus.

Cupid.

Amazons.

Soldier.

KB. The leaf with the actors' names in the Folio is not paged, so as
to hide the fact of 10 pages being missing.

VI. Finally. On any one who really cares to form a well-grounded
opinion as to this question, I would urge this practical test : — Eead
the parts of the play in our first column by themselves, and the
other parts by themselves ; and see whether the flavour left by them
is the same in both cases. I abstain from any comparison of passages
here, because any one who really is interested in the matter can
easily make them for himself : and, moreover, I know by experience,
that if I put passages side by side to compare the rhythm, some readers

* These are common to both Shakspere and the second writer.

f These have been touched up by the second writer.

J But see Part I.— F. G. Fleay.

iv. SHAKSPEBE'S SHARE IN TIMOX OF ATHENS POINTED OUT. 151

will immediately fancy it is the relative excellence of the quotations
which is in question. And herein lies one of the greatest hindrances
to the advance of criticism in this country. People look at a hand
writing, and say, " This is not Smith's ; he writes better than that."
They read a play, and say, " This must be Shakspere's, it is so good."
The expert knows that men write sometimes well and sometimes
badly ; but that in the handwriting and the poem, alike, there is a
character or style which cannot deceive. In this case I address
myself to the expert, and have no doubt, whatever, of the verdict.

F. G. FLEAY.

THE LIFE

TYMON OF ATHENS,

AS WRITTEN BY W. SHAKSPERE.

EDITED BY F. G. FLEAY,

FROM THE FOLIO OF 1623

Th^ usual insertions by another hand in the Play being left ouf).

PRINTED FOR THE NEW SHAKSPERE SOCIETY,

1874.

153

THE LIFE OF TYMON

OF ATHENS.

[Scene i.]

Enter Poet, Painter, leweller, Merchant, and Mercer, at
feuerall doores.

Poet
day Sir.

Pain. I am glad [to see] y'are well.

Poet. I haue not feene you long. How goes the World ?
Pain. It weares fir, as it growes.
Poet. I, that's well knowne.

4 But what particular Rarity ? What ftrange,
Which manifold record not matches ? See,
Magicke of Bounty, all thefe fpirits thy power
Hath coniur'd to attend : I know the Merchant.
8 Pain. I know them both : th'others a leweller.
Mer. O 'tis a worthy Lord.

lew. Nay, that's moft fixt.

Mer. A moft incomparable man, breath'd as it were,
To an vntyreable and continuate goodnefie :
12 He pafles [praife].

lew. I haue a lewell heere.

Mer. O pray let's fee't. For the Lord Timon, fir ?

Jewel. If he will touch the eftimate. But for that

Poet. ' When we for recompence haue prais'd the vild,

164 THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. [SO. 1.

1 6 ' It ftaines the glory in that happy Verfe,
' Which aptly lings the good.'

Mer. 'Tis a good forme.

lewel. And rich : heere is a Water looke ye.

Pain. You

Are rapt fir, in fome worke, fome Dedication
20 To the great Lord.

Poet. A thing flipt idlely from me.

Our Poefie is as a Glow, which ufes
From whence 'tis nourilht : [tho] the fire i'th' Flint
Shewes not, till it be ftrooke, our gentle flame
24 Prouokes it felfe, and like the currant flyes
Each bound it chafes. What haue you there ?

Pain. A Pidure.

Sir, when comes your Booke forth ?

Poet. Vpon the heeles

Of my prefentment fir. Let's fee your peece.
28 Pain. 'Tis a good Peece.

Poet. So 'tis ; this comes off well, and excellent.

Pain. Indifferent.

Poet. Admirable. How this grace

Speakes his owne ftanding : what a mentall power
32 This eye fhootes forth. How bigge imagination
Moues in this Lip: to th'dumbneffe of the gefture,
One might interpret.

Pain. It is a pretty mocking of the life :
36 Heere is a touch : Is't good ?

Poet. I will fay of it,

It Tutors Nature, Artificial] flrife
Liues in thefe toutches, liuelier then life.

Enter certaine Senators.

Pain. How this Lord's followed.
40 Poet. The Senators of Athens, happy men.
Pain. Looke, moe.

SO. 1.] THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. 155

Poet. You fee this confluence, this great flood of vilitors.
I haue in this rough worke fhap'd out a man,
44 Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hugge

•

With ampleft entertainment : My free drift

Halts not particularly, but moues it felfe

In a wide Sea of wax ; no leuell'd malice
48 Infe6ts one comma in the courfe I hold,

But flies an Eagle flight, bold and forth on,

Leauing no Tract behinde.

Pain. How fhall I vnderftand you ?

Poet. I will vnboult to you.

52 You fee how all Conditions, how all Mindes,

As well of glib and ilipp'ry Creatures, as

Of Graue and auftere qualitie, tender downe

Their feruices to Lord Timon : his large Fortune,
56 Vpon his good and gracious Nature hanging,

Subdues and properties to his loue and tendance

All forts of hearts ; yea, from the glafle-fac'd Flatterer

To Apemantus, that few things Joues better
60 Then to abhorre himfelfe ; euen hee drops downe

The knee before him, and returnes in peace

Moft rich in Timons nod.

Pain. I faw them fpeake together.

Poet. Sir,
64 I haue vpon a high and pleafant hill

Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd. The Bafe o'th'Mount

Is rank'd with all deferts, all kinde of Natures

That labour on the bofome of this Sphere,
68 To propagate their ftates ; among'ft them all,

Whofe eyes are on this Soueraigne Lady fixt,

One do I perfonate of Lord Timons frame,

Whom Fortune with her luory hand wafts to her,
72 Whofe prefent grace, to prefent flaues and feruants

Tranflates his Riuals.

Pain. 'Tis conceyu'd to fcope.

This Throne, this Fortune, and this Hill, me thinkes.

156 THE LYFE OF T^MON OF ATHENS. [SC. 1.

With one man becken'd from the reft below,
76 Bowing his head againft the fteepy Mount
To climbe his happinefie, would be well expreft
In our Condition.

Poet. Nay Sir, but heare me on :

All thofe which were his Fellowes but of late,
80 Some better then his valew, on the moment
Follow his ftrides, his Lobbies fill with tendance,
Raine Sacrificiall whifperings in his eare,
Make Sacred euen his ftyrrop, and through him
84 Drinke the free Ayre.

Pain. I marry, what of thefe ?

Poet. When Fortune in her fhift and change of mood
Spumes downe her late beloued ; all his Dependants,
Which labour'd after him to the Mountaines top
88 Euen on their knees and hand, let him flip downe,
Not one accompanying his declining foot.

Pain. 'Tis common :
A thoufand morall Paintings I can fhew,
92 That ftiall demonftrate thefe quicke blowes of Fortunes
More pregnantly then words. Yet you do well,
To fhew Lord Timon, that meane eyes haue feene
The foot aboue the head.

Trumpets found.

Enter Lord Timon, addrejjing hirnfelfe curteoujly to euery Sutor.

Tim. Imprifon'd is he, fay you ?

96 Mef. I my good Lord, fiue Talents is his debt,
His meanes moft fhort, his Creditors moft flraite :
Your Honourable Letter he defires
To thofe haue {hut him vp, which failing [him]
100 Periods his comfort.

Tim. Noble VentuLius, well :

I am not of that Feather, to make off
My Friend when he mufl neede me. I do know him

8C. 1.] THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. 167

A Gentleman, that well deferues a helpe,
104 Which he mall haue. He pay the debt, and free him.
Mef. Your Lordmip euer bindes him.
Tim. Commend me to him : I will fend his ranfome.
And, being enfranchized, bid him come to me :
1 08 'Tis not enough to helpe the Feeble vp,
3 ut to fupport him after. Fare you well.

Mef. All happinefle to your Honor. Exit.

Enter an old Athenian.

Oldm. Lord Timon, heare me fpeake.

Tim. Freely good Father,

112 Oldm. Thou haft a Seruant nam'd Lucilius.

Tim. I haue fo : What of him ?

Oldm. Moft noble Timon, call the man before thee.

Tim. Attends he heere, or no ?
116 LuciUius.

Luc. Heere at your Lordfhips feruice.

Oldm. This Fellow heere, L. Timon, this thy Creature,
By night frequents my houfe. I am a man
That from my firft haue beene inclin'd to thrift,
1 20 And my eftate deferues an Heyre more rais'd
Then one which holds a Trencher.

Tim. Well : what further ?

Old. One onely Daughter haue I, no Kin elfe,
On whom I may conferre what I haue got :
I24 The Maid is faire, a'th'youngeft for a Bride,
And I haue bred her at my deereft coft
In Qualities of the beft. This man of thine
Attempts her loue. I prythee (Noble Lord)
128 loyne with me to forbid him her refort.
My felfe haue fpoke in vaine.

Tim. The man is honeft.

Oldm. Therefore he will be, Timon,

His honefty rewards him in it felfe ;

158 THE LYFE OP TYMON OF ATHENS. [SC. 1.

132 It muft not beare my Daughter.

Tim. Does me loue him .'

Oldm. She's yong and apt :
Our owne precedent paffions do inftru6t vs
What leuitie 's in youth.

Tim. Loue you the Maid ?

136 Luc. I, my good Lord, and fhe accepts of it.

Oldm. If in her Marriage my confent be miffing,
I call the Gods to witnefle, I will choofe
Mine heyre from forth the Beggers of the world,
140 And difpoffefTe her all.

Tim. How mall me be endowed,

If me be mated with an equall Husband ?

Oldm. Three Talents on the prefent ; in future, all.
Tim. This Gentleman of mine hath feru'd me long :
144 To build his Fortune, I will ftraine a little j

For 'tis a Bond in men. Giue him thy Daughter.
What you beftow, in him He counterpoize,
And make him weigh with her.

Oldm. Moft Noble Lord,

148 Pawne me to this your Honour, me is his.

Tim. My hand to thee, mine Honour on my promife.
Luc. Humbly I thanke your Lordfhip, neuer may
That flate or Fortune fall into my keeping,

152 Which is not owed to you. Exit.

Poet. Vouchfafe my Labour, and long Hue your Lordfhip.
Tim. I thanke you, you mail heare fiom me anon :
Go not away. What haue you there, my Friend ?
156 Pain. A peece of Painting, which I do befeech
Your Lordfhip to accept.

Tim. Painting is welcome.

The Painting is almoft the Naturall man :
For lince Dimonor Traffickes with mans Nature,
1 60 He is but out-fide : Thefe Penfil'd Figures are
Euen fuch as they giue put. I like your worke,
And yon {hall finde I like it. Waite attendance

SO. 1.] THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. 159

Till you heare further from me.

Pain. The Gods preferue ye.

164 Tim. Well fare you Gentleman : giue me your hand :
We muft needs dine together. Sir your lewell
Hath fuffered vnder praife.

lewel. What my Lord, difpraife ?

Tim. A meere faciety of Commendations j
1 68 If I fhould pay you for't as 'tis extold,
It would vnclew me quite.

lewel. My Lord, 'tis rated

As thofe which fell would giue : but you well know,
Things of like valew differing in the Owners,
172 Are prized by their Mailers. Beleeu't deere Lord,
You mend the lewell by the wearing it.

Tim. Well mock'd. Enter Apermantus.

Mer. No my good Lord, he fpeakes ye common toong
1 76 Which all men fpeake with him.

Tim. Looke who comes heere.

Will you be chid?

lewel. Wee'l beare [it] with your Lordfhip.

Mer. Hee'l fpare none.

Tim. Good morrow to thee, Gentle Apermantus.
1 80 Ape. Till I be gentle, flay thou for thy good morrow.
When thou art Timons dogge, and thefe Knaues honeft.

Tim. Why doft thou call them Knaues, thou know'ft them not ?

Ape. Are they not Athenians ?

Tim. Yes.

Ape. Then I repent not.

Trumpet founds. Enter a Meflenger.

184 Tim. What Trumpets that ?

Mef. 'Tis Alciliades, and

Some twenty Horfe, all of Companionihip. . .

Tim. Pray entertaine them, giue them guide to vs.
You muft needs dine with me : go not you hence
188 Till I haue thankt you : when [our] .dinners done

160 THE LIFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. [SO. 1, 2.

Shew me this peece. I'm ioyfull of your fights.
Enter Alciliades with the reft.

Moft welcome Sir.

Ape. So, there.

Aches contract, and fterue your fupple ioynts.
192 That there mould bee fmall loue mongft thefe fweet Knaues,
And all this Curtefie. The ftraine of man's bred out
Into Baboon and Monkey.

Ale. Sir, you haue fau'd my longing, and I feed
196 Moft hungerly on your fight.

Tim. Right welcome Sir :

Ere we depart, wee'l mare a bounteous time
In different pleafures. Pray you let vs in. [Exeunt.

Manent two Lords.

t Come, mail we in,

200 And tafte Lord Timons bountie > he out-goes
The verie heart of kindnefle.

2 He powres it out : Plutus the God of Gold
Is but his Steward : no meede but he repayes
204 Seuen-fold aboue it lelfe : No guift to him,
But breeds the giuer a returne exceeding
All vfe of quittance.

i The Nobleft minde he carries,

That euer gouern'd man.
208 2 Long may he liue in Fortunes. Shall we in ?

He keepe you Company. Exeunt.

[Scene 2.]
Enter a Senator.

Sen. And late fiue thoufand : to Varro and to Ifidore
He owes nine thoufand, befides ray former fumme,
Which makes it fiue and twenty. Still in motion
A Of raging wafte r It cannot hold, it will not.

SC. 2.] THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. 161

If I want Gold, fteale but a beggers Dogge,

And giue it Timon, why the Dogge coines Gold.
If I would fell my Horfe, and buy twain moe
8 Better then he ; why giue my Horfe to Timon,
Aske nothing, giue it him, it Foles me ftraight
And able Horfes : No Porter at his gate,
But rather one that fmiles, and ftill inuites
12 All that paffe by. It cannot hold, no reafon
Can found his Hate in fafety. Caphis hoa,
Caphis, I fay.

Enter Caphis.

Ca. Heere lir, what is your pleafure ?

Sen. Get on your cloake, & haft you to Lord Timon .'
1 6 Importune him for my Moneyes, be not ceaft
With flight deniall -, nor then filenc'd, when
' Commend me to your Mafter,' and the Cap
Playes in the right hand, thus : but tell him [sirrha,]
20 My Vfes cry to me ; I muft ferue my turne
Out of mine owne, his dayes and times are paft,
And my reliances on his fracted dates
Haue fmit my credit. I loue, and honour him,
24 But muft not breake my backe, to heale his finger.
Immediate are my needs, and my releefe
Muft not be toft and turn'd to me in words,
But finde fupply immediate : Get you gone,
28 Put on a moft importunate afpecl,
A vifage of demand : for I do feare,
When euery Feather ftickes in his owne wing,
Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,
32 Which flames now a Phcenix ; get you gone.
Ca. I go fir.

Sen. I, go fir. Take the Bonds along with you,
And haue the dates in compt.

Ca. I will Sir.

Sen- Go. Exeunt.

TRANSACTIONS. 11

162 THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. [SO. 3.

[Scene 3.]
Enter Steward, with many lilies in his hand.

Stew. No care, no flop, fo fenfelefle of expence,

That he will neither know how to maintaine it,

Nor ceafe his flow of Riot. Takes no accompt
4 How things go from him, nor refume[s] no care

Of what is to continue : neuer minde

Was to be fo vnwife, to be fo kinde.

What fhall be done he will not heare, till feele :
8 I mull be round with him, now he comes from hunting.

Fye, fie, fie, fie.

Enter Caphis, Ifidore, and Farro.

Cap. Good euen Farro : what,

You come for money ?

Var. Is't not your bufinefie too ?

Cap. It is, and yours too, IJldore ?
I/id. It is fo.

1 2 Cap. Would we were all difcharg'd.

Var. I feare 't,

Cap. Heere comes the Lord.

Enter Timon, and his Trains.

Tim. So foone as dinners done, wee'l forth againe
My Alciliades. With me, whats your will ?

Cap. My Lord, heere is a note of certaine dues.
1 6 Tim. Dues ? whence are you ?

Cap. Of Athens heere, my Lord.

Tim. Go to my Steward.

Cap. Pleafe it your Lordfhip, he hath put me off
To the fucceffion of new dayes this moneth :
20 My Mafter is awak'd by great Occafion,

To call vpon his owne, and humbly prayes you,
That with your other Noble parts you'l fuite,
In giuing him his right.

Tim. Mine honefl Friend,

SC. 3.] THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. 163

24 I prythee but repaire to me next morning.

Cap. Nay, good my Lord.

Tim. Containe thy felfe, good Friend.

Far. One Varroes feruant, my good Lord.

Ifid. From Ifidore,

He humbly prayes your fpeedy payment.
28 Cap. If you did know, my Lord, my Matters wants.

Var. 'Twas due on forfeyture, my Lord, fixe weekes
And paft.

I/i. Your Steward puts me off my Lord,

And I am fent
32 Expreflely to your Lordfhip.

Tim. Giue me breath:

I do befeech you, good my Lords, keepe on,
He waite vpon you inftantly. Come hither :
Pray you how goes the world, that I am thus encountred
36 With clamorous demands of date-broke Bonds,
And the detention of long fince due debts
Againft my Honor ?

Stew . Pleafe you Gentlemen,

The time is vnagreeable to this bufinefle :
40 Your importunacie ceafe till after dinner,
That I may make his Lordfhip vnderftand
Wherefore you are not paid.

Tim. Do fo my Friends,

See them well entertain'd.
44 Stew. Pray you walke neere, He fpeake with you anon. Exeunt.

Tim. You make me meruell. Wherefore ere this time
Had you not fully laide my ftate before me,
That 1 might fo haue rated my expence
48 As I had leaue of meanes ?

Stew. You would not heare me :

At many leyfures I propof d.

Tim. Go too :

Perchance fome fingle vantages you tooke,
When my indifpolition put you backe, .

164 THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. [SO. 3

52 And that vnaptnefle made your minifter

Thus to excufe your felfe.

Slew. O my good Lord,

At many times I brought in my accompts,

Laid them before you j you would throw them off,
56 And fay you found them in mine honeftie.

When for fome trifling prefent you haue bid me

Returne fo much, I haue fliooke my head, and wept

Yea 'gainft th'Authoritie of manners, pray'd you
60 To hold your hand more clofe : I did indure

Not lildome, nor no flight checkes, when I haue

Prompted you in the ebbe of your eftate,

And your great flow of debts ; my [deare] lou'd Lord,
64 Though you heare now (too late), yet nowe's a time,

The greateft of your hauing lackes a halfe,

To pay your prefent debts.

Tim. Let all my Land be fold.

Stew. 'Tis all engag'd, fome forfeyted and gone j
68 And what remaines will hardly flop the mouth

Of prefent dues ; the future comes apace :

What fhall defend the interim, and at length

How goes our reck'ning ?
72 Tim. To Lacedemon did my Land extend.

Stew . O my good Lord, the world is but a word.

Were it all yours, to giue it in a breath,

How quickely were it gone.

Tim. You tell me true.

76 Stew. If you fufpect my Husbandry or Falfhood,

Call me before th'exacteit Auditors,

And fet me on the proofe. So the Gods blefle me,

When all our Offices haue beene oppreft
go With riotous Feeders ; when our Vaults haue wept

With drunken fpilth of Wine 5 when euery roome

Hath blaz'd with Lights, and braid with Minftrelfie j

I haue retyr'd me to a waftefull cocke,
g . And fet mine eyes at flow.

SC. 3.] THE LIFE OP TYMON OF ATHENS. 165

Tim. Prythee no more.

Stew. Heauens, haue I faid, the bounty of this Lord •
How many prodigall bits haue Slaues and Pezants
This night englutted : who is not [L.] Timons ?
88 What heart, head, fword, force, meanes, but is L. Timons •
Great Timon, Noble, Worthy, Royall Timon :
Ah, when the meanes are gone, that buy this praife,
The breath is gone, whereof this praife is made :
92 Feaft won, faft loft ; one cloud of Winter Ihowres,
Thefe flyes are coucht.

Tim. Come fermon me no further.

No villanous bounty yet hath paft my heart $
Vnwifely, not ignobly haue I giuen.

96 Why dofl thou weepe ? Canft thou the confcience lacke,
To thinke I mail lacke friends ? Secure thy heart,
If I would broach the veflels of my loue,
And try the argument of hearts, by borrowing,
too Men, and mens fortunes could I frankely vfe
As I can bid thee fpeake.

Ste. Afliirance bleife your thoughts.

Tim. And in fome fort thefe wants of mine are crown'd,
That I account them bleflings. For by thefe
104 Shall I trie Friends. You mail perceiue how you
Miftake my Fortunes : I am wealthie in
My Friends. Within there, Flauius, Seruilius*

Enter two Seruants.

1 Ser. My Lord.

2 Ser. My Lord.

Tim. Go you fir to the Senators ;

1 08 Of whom, euen to the States beft health, I haue
Deferu'd this Hearing : bid 'em fend o'th'inftant
A thoufand Talents to me.

Ste. I haue beene bold

(For that I knew it the moil generall way)
1 1 2 To them, to vfe your Signet and your Name -,

166 THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. [sC. 3.

But they do make their heads, and I am heere

No richer in returne.

Tim. Is't true ? Can't be ?

Stew. They anfwer in a ioynt and corporate voice,
116 'That now they are at fall, want Treafure, cannot

' Do what they would, are forrie : you are Honourable,

' But yet they could haue wifht j they know not [what],

' Something, hath beene amiffe j a Noble Nature
1 20 ' May catch a wrench j would all were well -, tis pitty ; '

And fo intending other ferious matters,

After diftaftefull lookes and thefe hard Fractions,

With certaine halfe-caps, and cold-moiling nods,
124 They froze me into Silence.

Tim. You Gods reward them :

[I] prythee man looke cheerely. Thefe old Fellowes

Haue their ingratitude in them Hereditary :

Their blood is cak'd, 'tis cold, it mdome flowes ;
128 'Tis lacke of kindely warmth ; they are not kindej

And Nature, as it growes againe toward earth,

Is fafliion'd for the iourney, dull and heauy.

Go to Ventiddius (prythee be not fad,
132 Thou art true, and honeft ; Ingenioufly I fpeake,

No blame belongs to thee :) Ventiddius lately

Buried his Father, by whofe death hee's ftepp'd

Into a great eftate : When he was poore,
136 Imprifon'd, and in fcarfitie of Friends,

I cleer'd him with fine Talents : Greet him from me,

Bid him fuppofe, fome good neceflity

Touches his Friend, which craues to be remembred
140 With thofe fiue Talents 5 that had, giue't thefe Fellowes

To whom 'tis inftant due. Neu'r fpeake, or thinke,

That Timons fortunes 'mong his Friends can linke.

Stew. I would I could not thinke it: that thought is Bounties Foej
144 Being free it felfe, it thinkes all others fo. Exeunt.

SO 4, 5.] THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. 167

[Scene 4.]

Enter diuers Friends atfeuerall doores, Timon and Attendants.
The Banket brought in.

Tim. Vncouer Dogges, and lap.

Somefpeake. What do's his Lordfhip meane?

Some other. I know not.
Timon. May you a better Feaft neuer behold,
4 You knot of Mouth- Friends : Smoke & lukewarm water
Is your perfection. This is Timons laft.
Who ftucke and fpangled you with Flatteries
Wames it off, and fprinkles in your faces
8 Your reeking villany. Liue loath' d, and long j
Moft fmiling, fmooth, detefted Parafites,
Curteous Deftroyers, affable Wolues, meeke Beares :
You Fooles of Fortune, Trencher-friends, Times Flyes,
12 Cap and knee-Slaues, vapours, and Minute lackes.
Of Man and Beafl the infinite Maladie
Cruft you quite o're. What do'ft thou go ?
Soft, take thy Phyficke firft ; thou too, and thou :
16 Stay, I will lend thee money, borrow none.

What ? All in Motion ? Henceforth be no Feaft,
Whereat a Villaine's not a welcome Guefl.
Burne houfe, finke Athens, henceforth hated be
20 Of Timon Man and all Humanity. Exit.

Exeunt the Senators.

[Scene 5.]
Enter Timon.

Tim. Let me looke backe vpon thee. O thou Wall
That girdles in thofe Wolues, diue in the earth,
And fence not Athens. Matrons, turne incontinent ;
4 Obedience fayle in Children : Slaues and Fooles
Plucke the graue wrinkled Senate from the Bench,

168 THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. [SO. 5.

And minifler in their fteeds ; to generall Filthes
Conuert o'th'Inftant greene Virginity j
8 Doo't in your Parents eyes. Bankrupts, hold faft,
Rather then render backe, out with your Kniues,
And cut your Truflers throates. Bound Seruants, fteale j
Large-handed Robbers your graue Matters are,
12 And pill by Law. Maide, to thy Matters bedj

Thy Miftris is o'th'Brothell. Sonne of fixteen,

Plucke the lyn'd Crutch from thy old limping Sire,

With it beate out his Braines. Piety, and Feare,
1 6 Religion to the Gods, Peace, luftice, Truth,

Domefticke awe, Night-reft, and Neighbour-hood,

Inftru&ion, Manners, Myfteries, and Trades,

Degrees, Obferuances, Cuftomes, and Lawes,
20 Decline to your confounding contraries,

And let Confuiion Hue : Plagues incident to men,

Your potent and infectious Feauors heape

On Athens ripe for ftroke. Thou cold Sciatica,
24 Cripple our Senators, that their limbes may halt

As lamely as their Manners. Luft, and Libertie,

Creepe in the Mindes and Marrowes of our youth,

That 'gainft the ftreame of Vertue they may ftriue,
28 And drowne themfelues in Riot. Itches, Blaines,

Sowe all th' Athenian bofomes, and their crop

Be generall Leprolie : Breath, infect breath,

That their Society (as their Friendship) may
32 Be meerely poyfon. Nothing He beare from thee

But nakednefle, thou deteftable Towne,

Take thou that too, with multiplying Bannes.

Timon will to the Woods, where he mall finde
36 Th'vnkindeft Beaft more kinder then Mankinde.

The Gods confound (heare me you good Gods all)

Th' Athenians both within and out that Wall :

And graunt as Timon growes, his hate may grow
40 To the whole race of Mankinde high and low.

Amen. Exit.

SO. 6.J THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. 169

[Scene 6.]
Enter Steward with two or three Seruants.

i Heare you M. Steward, where's our Mafter ?
Are we vndone, caft off, nothing remaining ?

Stew. Alack my Fellowes, what fhould I fay to you ?
4 Let me be recorded by the righteous Gods,
I am as poore as you.

1 Such a Houfe broke :
So Noble a Mafter falne, all gone, and not
One Friend to take his Fortune by the arme,

8 And go along with him.

2 As we do turne our backes
From our Companion throwne into his graue,

So his Familiars to his buried Fortunes
Slinke all away 5 leaue their falfe vowes with him
1 2 Like empty purfes pickt ; and his poore felfe,
A dedicated Beggar to the Ayre,
With his difeafe of all-munn'd pouerty,
Walkes, like contempt, alone. More of our Fellowes.

Enter other Seruants.
Z6 Stew. All broken Implements of a ruin' d houfe>

3 Yet do our hearts weare Timons Liuery,
That fee I by our Face j we're Fellowes ftill,
Seruing alike in forrow : Leak'd is our Barke,

20 And we poore Mates ftand on the dying Decke,

Hearing the Surges threat : we muft all part

Into this Sea of Ayre.

Stew. Good Fellowes all,

The lateft of my wealth He fLare among'ft you.
24 Where euer we {hall meete, for Timons fake

Let's yet be Fellowes j let's fhake our heads, and fay,

As 'twere a Knell vnto our Matters Fortunes,

We haue feene better dayes. Let each take fome :
28 Nay put out all vour hands : Not one word more ;

170 THE LIFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. [go. 7.

Thus part we rich in forrow, parting poore.

Embrace and part feuer all wayes.

[Scene 7.]
Enter Timon in the woods.

Tim. O blefled breeding Sun, draw from the earth

Rotten humidity : below thy Sifters Orbe

Infect the ayre. Twin'd Brothers of one wombe,
4 Whofe procreation, refidence, and birth,

Scarfe is diuidant -, touch them with feuerall fortunes ;

The greater fcornes the letter. Not [a] Nature

(To whom all fores lay fiege) can beare great Fortune
8 But by contempt of Nature.

Raife me this Begger, and deny't that Lord,

The Senator {hall beare contempt Hereditary,

The Begger Natiue Honor.
12 It is the Failure Lards the rothers fides,

The want that makes him leane : who dares ? who dares

In puritie of Manhood ftand vpright

And fay, this mans a Flatterer ? If one be,
1 6 So are they all : for euerie grize of Fortune

Is fmooth'd by that below. The Learned pate

Duckes to the Golden Foole. All's obliquie :

There's nothing leuell in our curfed Natures
20 But direct villanie. Therefore be abhorr'd,

All Feafts, Societies, and Throngs of men.

His femblable, yea himfelfe, Timon difdaines.

Deftruction phang mankinde -, Earth, yeeld me Rootes :
24 Who feekes for better of thee, fawce his pallate

With thy moft operant poyfon.

What's heere ? Gold ? Yellow, glittering, precious Gold ?

No, Gods, I am no idle Votarift.
28 Roots, you cleere Heauens. Thus much of this will make

Blacke, white -, fowle, faire; wrong, right j

Bafe, Noble ; Old, young j Coward, valiant. Ha

SO. 7.J THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. 171

You Gods, why this ? what, this, you Gods ? why this
32 Will lugge your Priefts and Seruants from your fides :
Plucke flout mens pillowes from below their heads.
This yellow Slaue,

Will knit and breake Religions, blefle th'accurft,
36 Make the hoare Leprofie ador'd, place Theeues,
And giue them Title, knee, and approbation
With Senators on the Bench : This, [this] is it,
That makes the wop-eyed Widdow wed againe j
40 Shee, whom the Spittle-houfe, and vlcerous fores,

Would caft the gorge at, this Embalmes and Spices
1 To'th'Aprill day againe. Come damned Earth,

Thou common whore of Mankinde, that puttes oddes
44 Among the rout of Nations, I will make thee

Do thy right Nature. March afarre o])\

Ha ? A Drumme ? Th'art quicke,
But yet He bury thee : Thou't go (ftrong Theefe)
When Gowty keepers of thee cannot Hand :
48 Nay ftay thou out for earneft.

Enter Alciliades with Drumme and Fife in warlike manner

and Phrynia and Timandra.

Ale. What art thou there ? fpeake.

Tim. A Beafl as thou art. The Canker gnaw thy hart
For mewing me againe the eyes of Man.

Ale. What is thy name ? Is man fo haterall to thee,
52 That art thy felfe a Man ?

Tim. I am Mifantropos, and hate Mankinde.
For thy part, I do wim thou wert a dogge,
That I might loue thee fomething.

Ale. I know thee well :

56 But in thy Fortunes am vnlearn'd, and flrange.

Tim. I know thee too, and more then that I know thee
I not defire to know. Follow thy Drumme.
With mans blood paint the ground Gules, Gules :
60 Religious Cannons, ciuill Lawes are cruell,

Then what fhould warre be ? This fell whore of thine

172 THE LYFE OP TYMON OF ATHENS. [SO. 7.

Hath in her more deftruction then thy Sword,
For all her Cherubin looke.

Phrin. Thy lips rot off.

64 Tim. I will not kifle thee, then the rot returnes
To thine owne lippes againe.

Ale. How came the Noble Timon to this change ?

Tim. As the Moone do's, by wanting light to giue :
68 But then renew I could not like the Moone j
There were no Sunnes to borrow of.

Ale. Noble Timon,

What friendmip may I do thee 5

Tim. None, but to

Maintaine my opinion.

Ale. What is it Timon 9

72 Tim. Promife me Friendmip, but perfornie none. If
Thou wilt not promife, the Gods plague thee, for
Thou art a man : if thou do' ft performe, confound thee,
For thou art a man.
76 Ale. I haue heard in fome fort of thy Miferies.

Tim. Thou faw'ft them when I had profperitie.

Ale. I fee them now j then was a bleffed time.

Tim. As thine is now, held with a brace of Harlots.
80 Timan. Is this th' Athenian Minion, whom the world
Voic'd fo regardfully ?

Tim. Art thou Timandra ?

Timan. Yes.

Tim. Be a whore ftill : they loue thee not that vfe thee 5
Giue them difeafes, leauing with thee their Luft :
84 Make vfe of thy fait houres, feafon the ilaues

For Tubbes and Bathes, bring downe [their] Rofe-cheekt youth
To the Tubfaft, and the Diet.

Timan. Hang thee Monfter.

Ale. Pardon him fweet Timandra, for his wits
88 Are drown'd and loft in his Calamities.
I haue but little Gold of late, braue Timon ;
The want whereof, doth dayly make reuolt

SC. 7.] THE LTFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. 173

In my penurious Band. I'ue heard and greeu'd
92 How curfM Athens, mindelefle of thy worth,
Forgetting thy great deeds, when Neighbour Hates
But for thy Sword and Fortune trod vpon them —

Tim. I prythee beate thy Drum, and get thee gone.
96 Ale. I am thy Friend, and pitty thee deere Timon.

Tim. How doeft thou pitty him whom yu doft treble ?
I had rather be alone.

Ale. Why fare thee well.

Heere's fome Gold for thee.

Tim. Keepe it, I cannot eate it.

100 Ale. When I haue laid proud Athens on a heape —
Tim. Warr'ft thou 'gainft Athens.

Ale. I, Timon, and haue cauf?.

Tim. The Gods confound them all i'thy Conqueft, and
Thee after, when thou haft Conquer' d.

Ale. Why me, Timon ?

104 Tim. Put vp thy Gold. Go on, heere's Gold, go on -,
Be as a Plannetary plague, when loue
Will o're fome high-Vic'd City, hang his poyson
In the ficke ayre : let not thy fword skip one :
1 08 Pitty not honour' d Age for his white Beard j

He is an Vfurer : Strike me the counterfet Matron j
It is her habite onely that is honeft,
Her felfe's a Bawd : Let not the Virgins cheeke[s]
112 Make foft thy trenchant Sword, (for thofe Milke pappes
That through the window Barne bore at mens eyes,
Are not within the Leafe of pitty writ,)
But fet them down horrible Traitors : Spare not the Babe
116 Whofe dimpled fmiles from Fooles exhauft their mercy -,
Thinke it a Baftard, whom the Oracle
Hath doubtfully pronounced, thy throat mail cut,
And mince it fans remorfe : Sweare againft Obie&s :
120 Put Armour on thine eares, and on thine eyes j

Whofe proofe, nor yels of Mothers, Maides, nor Babes,
Nor fight of Priefts in holy Veftments bleeding,

174 THE LYFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS. [sC. 7.

Shall pierce a iot. There's Gold to pay thy Souldiers.
i* 4 Make large confufion : and thy fury fpent,

Confounded be thy felfe. Speake not, be gone.

Ale. Haft thou Gold yet ? He take the Gold thou giueft me,

Not all thy Counfell.

128 Tim. Doft thou or doft thou not, Heauens curfe vpon thee.
Both, Giue vs fome Gold, good Timon, haft yu more ?
Tim. Enough to make a Whore forfweare her Trade,

And, to make Whores, a Bawd. Hold vp you Sluts
I32 Your Aprons mountant -} you are not Othable $

Although I know you'l fweare, terribly fweare

Into ftrong fhudders, and to heauenly Agues

Th'immortall Gods that heare you. Spare your Oathes,
136 He truft to your Conditions ; be whores ftill:

And he whofe pious breath feekes to conuert you,

Be ftrong in Whore, allure him, burne him vp j

Let your clofe fire predominate his fmoke,
14° And be no turne-coats : yet may your paines fix months

Be quite contrary. And Thatch your poore thin Roofes

With burthens of the dead, (some that were hang'd)

No matter : weare them, betray with them, Whore ftill,
144 Paint till a horfe may myre vpon your face :

A pox of wrinkles.

Both. Well, more Gold, what then ?

Beleeue't that wee' I do any thing for Gold.

Tim. Confumptions fowe
J4° Jn hollow bones of man, ftrike their fharpe minnes

And marre mens fpurring. Cracke the Lawyers voyce,

That he may neuer more falfe Title pleade,

Nor found his Quillets ihrilly : Hoare the Flamen,
152 That fcolds againft the quality of flefh,

And not beleeues himfelfe. Downe with the Nofe,

Downe with it flat, take the Bridge quite away

Of him, that his particular to forefee
156 Smels from the generall weale. Make curld'pate Ruffians baldj

And let the vnfcarr'd Braggerts of the Warre

SO. 7.] THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. 175

Deriue fome paine from you. Plague all,
That your A&iuity may defeate and quell
160 The fourfe of all Eredion. There's more Gold.
Do you damne others, and let this damne you,
And ditches graue you all.

Both. More counfell with more Money, bounteous Timon.
J64 Tim. More whore, more Mifcheefe firft. I haue giuen you

earneft.

Ale. Strike vp the Drum towardes Athens, farewell Timon :
If I thriue well, lie vifit thee againe.

Tim. If I hope well, He neuer fee thee more.
J68 stlc. I neuer did thee harmt.

Tim. Yes, thou fpok'ft well of me.

Ale. Call'ft thou that harme ?

Tim. Men dayly finde it. Get thee away, and take
Thy Beagles with thee.

Ale. We but offend him, ftrike. Exeunt.

172 Tim. That Nature being ficke of mans vnkindnefle
Should yet be hungry : Common Mother, thou
Whofe wombe vnmeafureable and infinite brefl
Teemes and feeds all : whofe felfefame Mettle
176 Whereof thy proud Childe (arrogant man) is puft,
Engenders the blacke Toad, and Adder blew,
The gilded Newt, and eyelefle venom' d Worme,
With all th'abhorred Births below Crifpe Heauen,
1 80 Whereon Hyperions quickning fire doth mine :
Yeeld him, who all thy humane Sonnes doth hate,
From foorth thy plenteous bofome, one poore roote :
Enfeare thy Fertile and Conceptions wombe,
184 Let it no more bring out ingratefull man.

Goe great with Tygers, Dragons, Wolues, and Beares ;
Teeme with new Monfters, whom thy vpward face
Hath to the Marbled Manfion all aboue
1 88 Neuer prefented. O, a Root, deare thankes :

Dry vp thy Marrowes, Vines, and Plough-tome Leas,
Whereof ingratefull man with Licourifh draughts

176 THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. [SC. 7.

And Morfels Vn&ious, greafes his pure minde,
J92 That from it all Confederation flippes

Enter Apemantus.

More man ? Plague, plague.

Ape. I was directed hither. Men report,

Thou doft affect my Manners, and doft vfe them.
I9^ Tim. 'Tis then, becaufe thou doft not keepe a dogge

Whom I would imitate. Confumption catch thee.
Ape. This is in thee a Nature but infected,

A poore vnmanly Melancholly fprung
200 From change of future. Why this Spade ? this place >

This Slaue-like Habit, and thefe lookes of Care ?

Thy Flatterers yet weare Si Ike, drinke Wine, lye foft,

Hugge their difeas'd Perfumes, and haue forgot
204 That euer Timon was. Shame not thefe Woods,

By putting on the cunning of a Carper.

Be thou a Flatterer now, and feeke to thriue

By that which ha's vndone thee j hindge thy knee,
208 And let his very breath whom thou'lt obferue

Blow off thy Cap : praife his moft vicious ftraine,

And call it excellent : thou waft told thus :

Thou gau'ft thine eares (like Tapfters, that bad welcom)
2 12 To Knaues, and all approachers : 'Tis moft iuft

That thou turne Rafcall ; had'ft thou wealth againe,

Rafcals mould haue't. Do not aflume my likenefle.
Tim. Were I like thee, I'de throw away my felfe.
216 Ape. Th' haft caft away thy felfe, being like thy felfj

A Madman fo long, now a Foole : what, think'ft

That the bleake ayre, thy boyfterous Chamberlaine,

Will put thy mirt on warme ? Will thefe motft Trees,
220 That haue out-liu'd the Eagle, page thy heeles

And skip when thou point'ft out ? Will the cold brooke,

Candied with Ice, Cawdle thy Morning tafte

To cure thy o're-nights furfet ? Call the Creatures,
224 Whofe naked Natures Hue in all the fpight

SO. 7.] THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. 177

Of wrekefull Heauen, whofe bare vnhoufed Trunkes

To the confli6ting Elements expos'd
Anfwer meere Nature : bid them flatter thee.
228 O thou malt finde—

Tim. A Foole of thee : depart.

Ape. I loue thee better now, then ere I did.
Tim. I hate thee worfe.
Ape. Why ?

Tim. Thou flatter'fl mifery.

Ape. I flatter not, but fay thou art a CaytifFe.
232 Tim. Why do'ft thou feeke me out ?

Ape. To vex thee [in'tj.

Tim. Alwayes a Villaines Office, or a Fooles.
Doft pleafe thy felfe in't ?
Ape. I.

Tim. What, a Knaue too ?

Ape. If thou did'ft put this fowre cold habit on
236 To caftigate thy pride, 'twere well : but thou
Doft it enforcedly : Thou'dft Courtier be againe
Wert thou not Beggar : willing mifery
Out-liues incertaine pompe, is crown'd before :
240 The one is filling ftill, neuer compleat :

The other, at high wim : beft ftate, Contentlefle,
Hath a diftra&ed and moft wretched being,
Worfe then the worft, Content.
244 Thou fhould'ft delire to dye, being miferable.

Tim. Not by his breath, that is more miferable.
Thou art a Slaue, whom Fortunes tender arme
With fauour neuer clafpt : but bred a Dogge.
248 Had' ft thou like vs from our firft fwath proceeded
The fweet degrees that this breefe world affords
To fuch as may the pafliue drugges of it
Freely command : thou would'ft haue plung'd thy felf
252 In generall Riot, melted downe thy youth
In different beds of Luft, and neuer learn'd
The Icie precepts of refpe6t, but followed

TRANSACTIONS 12

178 THE LYFE OP TYMON OF ATHENS. [8C. 7.

The Sugred game before thee. But my felfe,
256 Who had the world as my Confectionarie,

The mouthes, the tongues, the eyes, and hearts of men,
At duty more then I could frame employment j
That numberlefle vpon me flucke, as leaues
260 Do on the Oake, haue with one Winters bruih
Fell from their boughes, and left me open, bare,
For euery florme that blowes. I to beare this,
That neuer knew but better, is fome burthen :
264 Thy Nature did commence in fufferance, Time

Hath made thee hard in't. Why fhould'ft yu hate Men ?
They neuer flatter'd thee. What haft thou giuen ?
If thou wilt curfe, thy Father (that poore ragge)
268 Muft be thy fubiecl: -, who in fpight put ftuffe
To fome fhee-Begger, and compounded thee
Poore Rogue hereditary. Hence, be gone.
If thou hadft not bene borne the worft of men,
272 Thou hadft bene a Knaue and Flatterer.

Ape. Art thou proud yet ?

Tim. I, that I am not thee.
Ape. I, that I was

No Prodigall.

Tim. I, that I am one now.

Were all the wealth I haue fhut vp in thee,
276 ['Id giue thee leaue to hang it. Get thee gone :
That the whole life of Athens were in this
Thus would I eate it.

Ape* Hecre, I will mend thy Feaft.

Tim. Firft mend my company, take away thy felfe.
280 Ape. So I (hall mend mine owne, by'th'lacke of thine.

Tim. 'Tis not well mended fo, it is but botcht ;
If not, I would it were.

Ape. What would'ft thou haue to Athens ?

Tim. Thee thither in a whirlewind : if thou wilt,
284 Tell them there I haue Gold : looke, fo I haue.
Ape. Heere is no vfe for Gold.

SC. 7.] THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. 179

Tim. The beft, and trueft.

For heere it ileepes, and do's no hyred harme.

Ape. Thou art the Cap of all the Fooles aliue.
288 Tim. Would thou wert cleane enough to fpit vpon.

Ape. A plague on thee, thou art too bad to curfe.

Tim. All Villaines that do ftand by thee are pure.

Ape. There is no Leprofie, but what thou fpeak'ft.
292 Tim. If I name thee.

He beate thee. But I mould infect my hands.

Ape. I would my tongue could rot them off.

Tim. Away,

[Away,] thou ifliie of a mangie dogge.
296 Choller does kill me that thou art aliue ;
I fwoond to fee thee.

Ape. Would thou would'ft burft.

Tim. Away,

Thou tedious Rogue : I'm forry I mail lofe
A ftone by thee.

Ape. Beaft.

Tim. SJaue.

Ape. Toad.

Tim. Rogue, Rogue, Rogue,

300 I am ficke of this falfe world, and will loue nought
But euen the meere necefiities vpon't.
Then Timon prefently prepare thy graue :
Lye where the light Fome of the Sea may beate
3°4 Thy graueftone dayly, make thine Epitaph,
That death in me at others liues may laugh.
O thou fweete King-killer, and deare diuorce
Twixt naturall Sonne and fire : thou bright defiler
308 Of Himens pureft bed, thou valiant Mars,

Thou euer yong, freih, lou'd, and delicate wooer,
Whofe blufh doth thawe the confecrated Snow
That lyes on Dians lap, thou vifible God,
312 That fouldreft clofe Impoffibilities,

And mak'ft them kifle j that fpeak'ft with euerie Tongue

180 THE LYFE OP TTXOS OF ATHSyS. [8C. 7.

To euerie purpofe : O thou touch of hearts,
. Thinke thy flaue, maD, rebels ; and by thy vertue
Set them into confounding oddes, that Beaits
May haue the world in Empire.

Ape. Would 'twere fo.

But not till I am dead. He fay th'haft Gold :
Thou wilt be throng'd too ihortly.

Tim. Throng'd too?

Ape. I.

320 Tim. Thy backe I prythee.

Ape. Liue, and loue thy mifery.

Tim. Long Hue fo, and fo dye. I'm quit.

Ape. Mo things like men,

Eate Timon, and abhorre them. Erlt Apeman.

Enter the Bandettl.

All. Saue thee Timon.

Tim. Now, Theeues.

AIL Soldiers, not Theeues.

Tim. Both too, and womens Sonnes.

324 All. We are not Theeues, but men that much do want.

Tim. Your greateft want is, you want much of meat :
Why fhould you want ? Behold, the Earth hath Rootes :
Within this Mile breake forth a hundred Springs :
328 The Oakes beare Malt, the Briars Scarlet Heps,
The bounteous Hufwife Xature, on each bufli,
Layes her full Mefle before you. Want ? why Want ?

i We cannot Hue on Gralle, on Berries, Water,
33 2 As Beafts, and Birds, and Fifties.

Ti. Nor on the Beafts themfelues, the Birds & Fifties j
You muft eate men. Yet thankes I muft you con,
That you are Theeues profeft : that you worke not
336 In holier fliapes : For there is boundlefle Theft
In limited Profeffions. Rafcall Theeues
Heere's Gold. Go, fucke the fubtle blood o'th'Grape,
Till the high Feauor feeth your blood to froth,

SC. 7.] THE LTFB OF TYMON OF ATHESS. 181

340 And ib fcape hanging. Trult not the Phyfitian ;

His Antidotes are poyibn, and he flayes

Moe then you Rob : Take wealth and Hues together :

Do, Villaine[s,] do, lince you proteft to doo't
344 Like Workemen. He example you with Theeuery :

The Sunne's a Theefe, and with his great attraction

Robbes the vafte Sea. The Moone's an arrant Theefe,

And her pale fire fhe fnatches from the Sunne.
348 The Sea's a Theefe, whole liquid Surge relblues

The Moone into Salt teares. The Earth's a Theefe,

That feeds and breeds by a compofture ftolne

From gen'rall excrement : each thing's a Theefe.
352 The Lawes, your curbe and whip, in their rough power

Ha's vncheck'd Theft. Loue not your femes, away,

Rob one another : there's more Gold : cut throates j

All that you meete are Theeues : to Athens go,
356 Breake open Ihoppes [there] j nothing can you fteale

But Theeues do loofe it : fteale [no] lefle, for this

I giue you, and Gold confound you howfoere.

Amen. £r*/ Theeues.

Enter Poet, and Painter.

360 Poet. Haile worthy Timon.

Pain. Our late Noble Mafter.

Timon. Haue I once liu'd to lee two honeit men r
Poet. Sir:

Hauing often of your open Bounty tafted,
364 Hearing you were retyr'd, your Friends fame off,
Whofe thankelefle Natures (O abhorred Spirits)
Not all the "Whippes of Heauen are large enough —
What, to you,

368 Whofe Starre-like Noblenefle gaue lite and influence
To their whole being ? I'm rapt, and cannot couer
The monftrous bulke of this Ingratitude
"With any fize of words.
- : Timon. Let it go naked : men may fee't the better :

182 THE LYFB OF TYMON OF ATHENS. [SO. 7.

You that are honeft, by being what you are,
Make them belt feene, and knowne.

Pain. He, and my felfe

Haue trauail'd in the great fhowre of your guifts,
376 And fweetly felt it.

Timon. I, you are honeft men.

Painter. We are hither come to offer you our feruice.

Timon. Mod honeft men : Why how fhall I requite you ?
Can you eate Roots, and drinke cold water ? no.
38° Both. What we can do, wee'l do to do you feruice.

Tim. Y'are honeft men, y'haue heard that I haue Gold,
I am fure you haue. Speake truth : y'are honeft men.

Pain. So it is faid, my Noble Lord ; but therefore
384 Came not my Friend, nor I.

Timon. Good honeft men : Thou draw'ft a counterfet
Beft in all Athens, th'art indeed the beft,
Thou counterfet'ft moft liuely.

Pain. So, fo, my Lord.

388 Tim. E'ne fo fir as I fay. And for thy fiction,
Why thy Verfe fwels with ftuffe fo fine and fmooth,
That thou art euen Naturall in thine Art.
But for all this (my honeft Natur'd friends)
392 I muft needs fay you haue a little fault j

Marry 'tis not monftrous in you, neither wifh I
You take much paines to mend.

Both. Befeech your Honour

To make it knowne to vs.

Tim. You'l take it ill.

296 Both. Moft thankefully, my Lord.

Timon. Will you indeed ?

Both. Doubt it not, worthy Lord.

Tim. There's neuer a one of you but trufts a Knaue,
That mightily deceiues you.

Both. Do we, my Lord ?

400 Tim. I, and you heare him cogge, fee him dilfemble,
Know his grofle patchery, loue him, feede him, keepe

SO. 7.] THE LYFE OP TYMON OF ATHENS. 183

[Htm] in your bofome, yet remaine afiur'd

That he's a made-vp-Villaine.

Pain. I know none fuch, my Lord.

404 Poet. Nor I.

Timon. Looke you, I loue you well, He giue you Gold :

Rid me thefe Villaines from your companies ;

Hang them, or flab them, drowne them in a draught,
4°8 Confound them by fome courfe ; and come to me,

He giue you Gold enough.

Both. Name them my Lord, let's know them.

Tim. You that way, and you this : but two in Company :

Each man apart, all tingle, and alone,
412 Yet an arch Villaine keepes him company.

If where thou art, two Villaines mall not be,

Come not neere him. If thou would'fl not recide

But where one Villaine is, then him abandon.
416 Hence, packe, there's Gold ; you came for Gold ye flaues :

You haue [done] worke for me; there's payment; hence.

You are an Alcumifl, make Gold of that :

Out Rafcall dogges. Exeunt.

Enter Steward, and two Senators.

420 Stew. It is [in] vaine that you would fpeake with Timon :
For he is fet fo onely to himfelfe,
That nothing but himfelfe, which lookes like man,
Is friendly with him.

1. Sen. Bring vs to his Caue.
424 It is our part and promife to th' Athenians

To fpeake with Timon.

2. Sen. At all times alike

Men are not ftill the fame : 'twas Time and Greefes
That fram'd him thus. Time with his fairer hand,
428 Offering the Fortunes of his former dayes,

The former man may make him. Bring vs to him
And chance it as it may.

Stew. Heere is his Caue :

184 THE LYFE OP TYMON OF ATHENS. [SC. 7.

Peace and content be heere. Lord Timon, Timon,
432 Looke out, and fpeake to Friends: Th' Athenians
By two of their moft reuerend Senate greet thee :
Speake to them, Noble Timon.

Enter Timon out of his Caue.

Tim. Thou Sunne that comforts, burne. Speake and be hang'd.
436 For each true word, a blifter j and each falfe
Be as a Cautherizing to the root o'th'Tongue,
Confuming it with fpeaking.

i Worthy Timon.

Tim. Of none but fuch as you, and you of Timon.
440 i The Senators of Athens greet thee Timon.

Tim. I thanke them, and would fend them backe the plague,
Could I but catch it for them.

1 O forget
What we are forry for our felues in thee :

444 The Senators, with one confent of loue,

Intreate thee backe to Athens, who haue thought
On fpeciall Dignities, which vacant lye
For thy befl vfe and wearing.

2 They confefle
448 Toward thee, forgetfulnefle too generall grofle -,

Which now the publike Body, which doth fildome

Play the re-canter, feeling in it felfe

A lacke of Timons ayde, hath fence withall
452 Of it owne fail, retraining ayde to Timon,

And fend forth vs, to make their forrow'd render,

Together with a recompence more fruitfull

Then their offence can weigh downe by the Dramme j
456 I, euen fuch heapes and fummes of Loue and Wealth,

As mail to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs,

And write in thee the figures of their loue,

Euer to read them thine.

Tim. You witch me in it j

Surprize me to the very brinke of teares ;

SO. 7.] THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. 185

Lend me a Fooles heart, and a womans eyes,
And He beweepe thefe comforts, worthy Senators.

1 Therefore fo pleafe thee to returne with vs,
4^4 And of our Athens, thine and ours, to take

The Captainmip, thou fhalt be met with thankes,
Allow'd with abfolute power, and thy good name
Line with Authoritie : fo foone we mall driue backe
468 Of Alciliades th'approaches wild,

Who, like a Bore too fauage, doth root vp
His Countries peace.

2 And makes his threatning Sword
Againft the walles of Athens.

i Therefore Timon,

472 Tim. Well fir, I will : therefore I will, fir, thus.

If Alciliades kill my Countrymen,

Let Alciliades know this of Timon,

That Timon cares not. But if he facke faire Athens,
476 And take our goodly aged men by th'Beards,

Giuing our holy Virgins to the ftaine

Of contumelious, beaftly, mad-brain'd warre :

Then let him know, and tell him Timon fpeakes it,
480 In pitty of our aged and our youth,

I cannot choofe but tell him ; that I care not :

And let him tak't at worft : For their Kniues care not,

While you haue throats to anfwer. For my felfe,
4*>4 There's not a whittle in th'vnruly Campe,

But I do prize it at my loue before

The reuerend'fl Throat in Athens. So I leaue you

To the protection of the profperous Gods,
488 As Theeues to Keepers.

Stew. Stay not : all's in vaine.

Tim. Why I was writing of my Epitaph 5

It will be feene to-morrow. My long ficknefle

Of Health, and Liuing, now begins to mend,
492 And nothing brings me all things. Go, line ftill,

Be Alciliades your plague, you hisj

186 THE LYFE OF TYMON OF- ATHENS. [SO. 7.

And lafl fo long enough.

i We fpeake in vaine.

Tim. But yet I loue my Country, and am not
496 One that reioyces in the common wracke,
As common bruite doth put it.

i That's well fpoke.

Tim. Commend me to my louing Countreymen.
i Thefe words become your lippes as they pafle through them.
500 2 And enter in our eares, like great Triumphers
In their applauding gates.

Tim. Commend me to them,

And tell them, that to eafe them of their greefes,
Their feares of Hoflile ftrokes, their Aches, loifes,
504 Their pangs of Loue, with other incident throwes
That Natures fragile Veflell doth fuftaine
In lifes vncertaine voyage, I will [yet]
Some kindnes do them, He teach them to preuent
508 Wilde Alciliades wrath.

i I like this well, he will returne againe.
Tim. I haue a Tree which growes heere in my Clofe,
That mine owne vfe inuites me to cut downe,
512 And fhortly muft I fell it. Tell my Friends,
Tell Athens, in the fequence of degree
From high to low throughout, that who fo pleafe
To flop Affliction, let him take his hafte,
5 1 6 Come hither ere my Tree hath felt the Axe,

And hang himfelfe. I pray you do my greeting.

Stew. Trouble him no further, thus you flill mail finde him.
Tim. Come not to me againe, but fay to Athens,
520 Timon hath made his euerlafting Manfion
Vpon the Beached Verge of the fait Flood,
Who once a day with his embofled Froth
The turbulent Surge mall couer -t thither come,
524 And let my graue-stone be your Oracle :

Lippes, let foure words go by, and Language end :
What is amifle, Plague and Infection mend.

SO. 7, 8.] THE LYFB OF TYMON OF ATHENS. 187

Graues onely be mens workes, and Death their gaine ;
528 Sunne, hide thy Beames, Timon hath done his Raigne.

Exit Timon.

1 His difcontents are vnremoueably
Coupled to Nature.

2 Our hope in him is dead, let vs returne,
532 And ftraine what other meanes is left vnto vs

In our deere perill.

i It requires fwift foot. Exeunt.

[Scene 8.]
Enter two other Senators, with a Meffenger.

1 Th' haft painfully difcouer'd : are his Files
As full as thy report ?

Mef. I haue fpoke the Jeaft.

Belides his expedition promifes
4 Preient approach.

2 We ftand much hazard, if they bring not Timon.
Mef. I met a Currier, one mine ancient Friend,

Whom though in generall part we were oppos'd,
8 Yet our old loue made a particular force,
And made vs fpeake like Friends. This man was riding
From Alcil'iades to Timons Caue,
With Letters of intreaty, which imported
12 His Fellowfhip i'th'caufe againft your City,
In part for his fake mou'd.

Enter the other Senators.

i Heere come our Brothers.

3 No talke of Timon, nothing of him expe6t.

The Enemies Drumme is heard, and fearefull fcouring
1 6 Doth choake the ayre with duft : In, and prepare.

Ours is the fall I feare, our Foes the Snare. Exeunt.

188 THE LYFE OF TYMON OF ATHENS. [SO. 9.

[Scene 9.]

Trumpets found. Enter Alciliades with his Powers
before Athens.

Ale. Sound to this Coward and lafciuious Towne,
Onr terrible approach.

Sounds a Parly.
The Senators appeare vpon the wals.

Till now you haue gone on, and fill'd the time
4 With all Licentious meafure, making your willes

The fcope of luflice : Till now, my felfe and fuch

As ilept within the fhadow of your power

Haue wander'd with our trauerft Armes, and breath'd
8 Our fufferance vainly : Now the time is flufh,

When crouching Marrow in the bearer ftrong

Cries (of it felfe) no more : Now breathlefTe wrong,

Shall lit and pant in your great Chaires of eafe,
12 And purfie Infolence mail breake his winde

With feare and horrid flight.

i. Sen. Noble, and young ;

When thy firft greefes were but a meere conceit,

Ere thou had' ft power, or we had caufe of feare,
1 6 We fent to thee, to giue thy rages Balme,

To wipe out our Ingratitude, with Loues

Aboue their quantitie.

2 So did we wooe

Transformed Timon, to our Citties loue
20 By humble MefTage, and by promift meanes :

We were not all vnkinde, nor all deferue

The common ftroke of warre.

i Thefe walles of oars

Were not erected by their hands, from whom
24 You haue receyu'd your greefe : Nor are they fuch,

That thefe great Towres, Trophees, & Schools mold fall

For priuate faults in them.

SO. 9.] THE LYFE OP TYMON OF ATHENS. 189

2 Nor are they liuing

Who were the motiues that you firfl went out j
28 Shame (that they wanted cunning in excefle)

Hath broke their hearts. March, Noble Lord,

Into our City with thy Banners fpred.

By decimation and a tythed death,
32 If thy Reuenges hunger for that Food

Which Nature loathes, take thou the deftin'd tenth,

And by the hazard of the fpotted dye

Let dye the fpotted.

j All haue not offended :

36 For thofe that were it is not fquare to take

On thofe that are Reuenge[s] : Crimes like Lands

Are not inherited. Then deere Countryman,

Bring in thy rankes, but leaue without thy rage,
40 Spare thy Athenian Cradle and thofe Kin

Which in the blufter of thy wrath muft fall

With thofe that haue offended ; like a Shepheard

Approach the Fold and cull th'infe&ed forth,
44 But kill not altogether.

2 What thou wilt,

Thou rather {halt inforce it with thy fmile,

Then hew too't with thy Sword.

1 Set but thy foot
Againft our rampyr'd gates, and they mall ope :

48 So thou wilt fend thy gentle heart before,
To fay thou't enter Friendly.

2 Throw thy Gloue,
Or any Token of thine Honour elfe,

That thou wilt vfe the warres as thy redrefie,
52 And not as our Confulion : All thy Powers

Shall make their harbour in our Towne, till wee

Haue feal'd thy full defire.

Ale. Then there's my Gloue,

Defcend and open your vncharged Ports :
56 Thofe Enemies of Timons, and mine owne

. 190 THE LYFE OP TYMON OF ATHENS. [SC. 9.

Whom you your felues fhall fet out for reproofe,

Fall and no more -} and to attone your feares

With my more Noble meaning, not a man
60 Shall pafie his quarter, or offend the ftreame

Of Regular luftice in your Citties bounds,

But fhall be render'd to your publique Lawes

At heauiefl anfwer.

Both. Tis moft Nobly fpoken.

64 Ale. Defcend, and keepe your words.

Enter a MeJJenger.

Mef. My Noble Generall, Timon is dead,
Entomb'd vpon the very hemme o'th'Sea,
And on his Graueftone this Infculpture, which
68 With wax I brought away : whofe foft Impreflion
Interprets for my poore[r] ignorance.

Alciliades reades the Epitaph.

Heere lies a wretched Coarfe, of wretched Soule bereft,

Seek not my name. A Plague confume you, wicked Caitifs left :
72 Heere lye I Timon, who aliue all lining men did hate.

PaJJe ly, and curfe thy Jill, but paffe andjlay not here thy gate.

Thefe well exprefle in thee thy latter fpirits :

Though thou abhorrd'ft in vs our humane griefes,
76 Scornd'ft our Braines flow, and thofe our droplets, which

From niggard Nature fall j yet Rich Conceit

Taught thee to make vaft Neptune weepe for aye

On thy low Graue, on faults forgiuen. Dead
80 Is Noble Timon, of whofe Memorie

Heereafter more. Bring me into your Citie,

And I will vfe the Oliue, with my Sword :

Make war breed peace, make peace ftint war, make each
84 Prefcribe to other, as each others Leach.

Let our Drummes ftrike. Exeunt.

FINIS.

191

THE

ACTORS

NAMES.

\YMONofAthens.
Appemantus, a Chur-

ll/h Philofopher.
Alciliades, an Athen
ian Captaine.
Poet. >,

Painter. I
Jeweller. \
Merchant. J
Cerlaine Senatours, [and Lords].

Caphis. \

Seuerall Servants to

Ventidius, one of Tymons falfe

Friends.

[Flavius,] one of Tymons servants.
Servilius, another.
With diners other Seruants,
And Attendants.

[Lucilius,] a dependent of Tymons,
Old Athenian.
Steward.
Certaine Theeues.

\Phrynia. }
TimandraJ] /
Messenger.

Harlots.

192

NOTES ON TYMON OF ATHENS.

Sc. i. line 1. [to see]. — Fleay. Necessary for metre. Compare
Hamlet, I. ii. 160; II. ii. 440; Merry Wives, I.
i. 80, &c.
12. [praise]. — Fleay. Compare Love's Labour's Lost, IV.

iii. 241.
21. Compare Sonnet 73 :

In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-hed wheron it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourisht by.
And read,

" Our poesy is as a glow which uses

From whence 'tis nourisht."
glow for gowne ; [tho~*. — Fleay.
25. chafes for chases. — Theobald. But I much doubt if

any alteration be needed.
88. slip for sit. — Eowe.
99. [him].— Capell.
178. [it].— Pope.
188. [our]. — Fleay.
190. there for their. — Capell.
192. mongst for amongst. — Capell.
Sc, ii. line 7. twain for twenty. — Farmer.

34. Ay, go, Sir / for / go, sir. — Pope.

35. in compt for in-come. — Theobald.

Sc. iii. line 36. date-broke for debt ; broken. — Steevens.

87. [L.] Steevens.
118. [what].—Dyce.
, 125. [/].— Pope.
Sc. vii. line 6. [a]. — Fleay. For nature used in this sense compare

NOTES ON TYMOK OF ATHENS. 193

Earle, Microcosmographie, 1628: " 'Tis the best
Theater of natures where they are truely acted not
plaid," &c.

12. Pasture, rothers, for Pastour, Brothers. — Eowe.
38. This, [this] is it. Compare Jonson, Prologue to the

Poetaster :
What's here ! The Arraignment ! Ay, this, this is

it. — Fleay. This is it, this. — Hanmer.
39. wop-eyed for wapperfd. — Fleay. "Lippus; that hath
dropping waterish eyes ; wop-eyed, whose eyes
run with water." Latin Dictionary (Qy. A. Lit
tleton's) about 1670.

85. [their]. — Fleay.

86. Tubfast for Fubfasf.—TheobM.
111. cheek[s].— Fleay.

118. % for the.— Pope.
152. scolds for scoldst. — Eowe.
181. the for thy. — Pope.

doth for do. — Capell.
219. moss'd for mai/st. — Hanmer.
232. [in't]. — Fleay, for metre's sako.
251. command for commandst. — Howe.
279. my for thy. — Rowe.
295. [away]. — Fleiy.
307. son and sire for sunne and fire. — Rowe.

322. them for then. — Rowe. I do not give this speech to

Timon, with Hanmer and others : they mistake the
meaning of quit, which does not mean left, but
requited. Timon is quits with Apemantus by his
last answer.

323. Query, Both two.
343. Villaine[s].— Fleay.

356. [there'].— Fleay.

357. [no].— ColHer.
402. [Am].— Heath.
417. [<£>?w]. — Malone.

TRANSACTIONS. ]3

194 NOTES ON TYMON OF ATHENS.

424. Alteration of part to pact is not necessary.
437. cautherizing for cantherizing. — Eowe.
452. fail for fall.— Capell.
506. [yet]. — Fleay.

525. sour for four (Eowe) is plausible ; "but is not the
rhyming tag of four lines the four words alluded
to?
Sc. ix. line 37. revenge\s\. — Steevens.

62. rendered for remedied. — Dyce, after Chedworth.
Eut I should much prefer, Butff] shall be remedied.
69. poore\r\. — Fleay ; after S. Walker (withdrawn).
The brackets [ ] indicate insertions of new letters or words in
the text.

In the stage directions I have altered three Servants into two S.
in p. 165.

F. G. FLEAY.

195

ON THE PLAY OF PERICLES.

BY THE REV. F. Q. FLEAY, M.A.
(Read at the Fourth Meeting of the Society, held on Friday, May 8, 1874.)

WITH regard to the authorship of this play, we may, I think,
take it at once for granted, that the first two acts are not by Shak-
spere. It has been so long admitted by all critics of note that this is
the case, that it cannot be worth while to go over the evidence again
in detail. In order, however, to extinguish any lingering doubt, I
give the metrical evidence ; which will, at the same time, show how
much more easily and certainly this result would have been arrived
at had this method of investigation been earlier adopted. The play
consists of verse scenes, prose scenes, and the Gower chorus. Con
sidering at present only the first of these three parts, we shall find
so marked a difference between the first two, and last three, acts, as
to render it astonishing that they could ever have been supposed to
be the work of one author.

COMPARATIVE TABLE.

Actsi.,ii. Acts iii., iv., T.

Total no. of lines 835 827

No. of rhyme lines 195 14

No. of double endings 72 106

No. of Alexandrines 5 13

No. of short lines 71 98

No. of rhymes not dialogue 8 1 G

The differences in the other items are striking, and of themselves
conclusive : but the difference of the numbers of rhymes, the pro
portion being 14 in the one part to 1 in the other, is such as the
most careless critic ought to have long since noticed. With regard

19G IV. OX THE PLAY OF PERICLES.

to this main question, then, there can be no doubt : the three last
acts alone can be Shakspere's ; the other part is by some one of a
very different school. But we have minor questions of some interest
to settle. The first of these is, Who wrote the scenes in the brothel,
Act iv., Sc. 2, 5, 6 1 I say decidedly, not Shakspere : for these
reasons. These scenes are totally unlike Shakspere's in feeling on
such matters. He would not have indulged in the morbid anatomy
of such loathsome characters ; he would have covered the ulcerous
sores with a film of humour, if it were a necessary part of his moral
surgery to treat them at all — and, above all, he would not have
married Marina to a man whose acquaintance she had first made in
a public brothel, to which his motives of resort were not recommend
atory, however involuntary her sojourn there may have been. A
still stronger argument is the omission of any allusion in the after-
scenes to these three. In one place, indeed, there seems to be a
contradiction of them. The after-account of Marina, which is amply
sufficient without the prose scenes for dramatic purposes, is given-
thus :

We hane a maid in Metiline ....
Shee with her fellow maides [is] now upon
The leauie shelter that abutts against
The Islands side. — Act v. Sc. 1.

I cannot reconcile this with

Proclaim that I can sing, weave, sowe, and dance,

And [I] will undertake all these to teach. — Act iv. Sc. 6.

Nor with

Pupils lacks she none of noble race,

Who pour their bounty on her : and her gain

She gives the cursed Bawd. — Act v., Gower.

But if these scenes are not Shakspere's (and repeated examination
only strengthens my conviction that they are not), the clumsy Gower
chorus is not his either. And this brings us to the only hypothesis
that explains all the difficulties of this play. The usual hypothesis
has been that Shakspere finished a play begun by some one else :

IV. ON THE PLAY OF PERICLES. 197

that is, that he deliberately chose a story of incest, which, having no
tragic horror in it, would have been rejected by Ford or Massinger ;
and grafted on to this a filthy story, which, being void of humour,
would even have been rejected by Fletcher. This arises from the
fallacy which I noted in a previous paper, caused by the inveterate
habit of beginning criticism from the first pages of a book, instead of
from the easiest and most central standpoint. The theory which I
propose as certain, is this : — Shakspere wrote the story of Marina, in
the last three acts, minus the prose scenes and the Gower. This gives
a perfect artistic and organic whole : and, in my opinion, ought to be
printed as such in every edition of Shakspere : the whole play, as it
stands, might be printed in collections for the curious, and there
only. But this story was not enough for filling the necessary five
acts from which Shakspere never deviated; he therefore left it
unfinished : and used the arrangement of much of the later part in
the end of Winter's Tale, which should be carefully compared with
this play. The unfinished play was put into the hands of another of
the "poets" attached to the same theatre, and the greater part of
the present play was the result ; this poet having used the whole
story as given in Gower and elsewhere.

It is somewhat confirmatory of this theory that the play was not
admitted into the first Folio; nor published before 1623, except in
Quarto, first by Gosson, and afterwards by Pavier, whose dealings in
scarcely anything but surreptitious editions are so conspicuous. It
is difficult to understand how such poetry as is contained in the
Shakspere part of this play could have been neglected, had there not
been some reason for the editors of the Folio to leave it out of their
edition ; either some tradition of Shakspere's disgust at the way in
which his work had been completed, or some strong feeling that its
publication in their authorized edition would be no credit to its
author. One thing is certain, that it was absolutely neglected by
Shakspere himself : no play of his, however carelessly printed, has
its text in so wretched a condition; nor has the way in which
modern editors have arranged its verse — which is for the most part
printed as prose in the old editions — been much more creditable to
them than the disarrangement of it was to the older editors.

198 IV. ON THE PLAY OF PERICLES.

In confirmation of the general conclusions arrived at above, 1
may add a few isolated considerations. In the list of the actors'
names, Boult, Bawd, and Pander are omitted : now these, and these
only, are the additional characters introduced in the brothel scenes
in the 4th Act. This looks very much as if these scenes had been
an after-thought added when the rest of the play had been already
arranged. Couple with this the fact that the Gower parts in Acts
iv. v., in which these scenes are alluded to, are in lines of five
measures, and not of four, as those in the earlier acts are : observe,
also, that these scenes, though far from reaching to Shakspere's
excellence, are certainly superior to anything in the first two acts, so
far as mere literature is concerned, and it will be almost certain that
three authors were concerned in this play. The first author wrote
the first two acts, and arranged the whole so as to incorporate the
Shakspere part. The second wrote the five-measure Gower parts and
the brothel-scenes in Acts iv. v., in order to lengthen out the play to
the legitimate five acts. Even as it stands, the play is far shorter
than any play of Shakspere's ; and it was probably in order to make
up for the want of poetic invention that the long dumb-show per
formances were introduced into the Gower parts. It is scarcely pos
sible to test the prose in the same way as we can the verse in
these scenes ; but even the little verse we have of the second writer's
•will, I think, be enough to confirm my theory. Not that the prose
in Act iv. is like that in Acts i. ii. ; but that the differences are not,
by any test I have yet devised, capable of tabulation. I give speci
mens of the verse, for comparison.

I. Shakspere. His first piece in the play.

Thou God of this great vast, rebuke these surges,
Which wash both heauen and hell ; and thou that hast
Upon the windes commaund, bind them in Brasse,
Hauing [rejcall'd them from the deep. 0 still
Thy deafning, dreadfull thunders : gently quench
Thy nimble sulphirous flashes. — Act iii. Sc. 1.

II. Author of brothel scenes.

Neither of these are so bad as thou art,

IV. ON THE PLAY OF PERICLES. 199

Since they do better thee in their command ;

Thou hold'st a place for which the painedst fiend

In hell would not in reputation change :

Thou art the damned doorkeeper to every

Cusherel that comes enquiring for his Tib :

To the cholerick fisting of every rogue

Thy ear is liable : thy food is such

As hath been belcht on by infectious lungs. — Act iv. Sc. 6.

III. Arranger of whole piece.

Yet cease your ire, you angry Stars of heaven,

Wind, Eain, and Thunder : Remember earthly man

Is but a substance that must yield to you :

And I, (as fits my nature,) do obey you.

Alas, the Seas hath cast me on the Rocks,

Washt me from shore to shore, and left my breath

Nothing to think on but ensuing death :

Let it suffice the greatnesse of your powers,

To have bereft a Prince of all his fortunes,

And having thrown him from your watry grave,

Here to have death in peace is all he'll crave. — Act ii. Sc. 1.

These three styles are about as different as any can be ; but still
further to distinguish the non-Shaksperian writers, let us compare
their rhyming-verse.

I. Writer of brothel scenes.

And Pericles, in sorrow all devour' d,

With sighes shot through, and biggest teares o'reshowr'd,

Leaves Tharsus and again imbarks, he sweares

Never to wash his face nor cut his haires,

He put on Sackcloth and to Sea he beares,

A tempest which his mortall Vessell teares.

And yet he rides it out. Now take we our way

To the Epitaph for Marina writ by Dionizia,

The fairest, sweetest, and best lies here,

Who withered in her spring of year :

200 IV. ON THE PLAY OF PERICLES.

She was of Tyrus the King's Daughter,

On whom foule death hath made this slaughter :

Marina was she call'd, and at her birth

Thetis, being proud, swallow'd some part of th' earth :

Therefore the earth, fearing to be o'reflow'd,

Hath Thetis birth-childe on the heav'ns bestow'd,

Wherefore she does and swears she'll never stint,

Make raging Battry vpon shores of flint. — Gower, Act iv.

Before, however, comparing this with passages from Acts i. and
ii., consider the monstrous theory which all * the best critics have
hitherto held. Delius, for instance, in his preface to his translation
of Pericles (in Bodenstedt's edition), says that " the original Com
poser of this Drama, later on withdrew in favour of his co-worker
Shakspere — so to say, allowing himself to be eclipsed." Imagine
Shakspere in his best period allowing this stuff to stand in a play
over which he had the full control ! It is impossible. Shakspere
certainly never had any management or arrangement of the play :
he only contributed the Marina story, which I have tried to separate
and restore to him. Read that by itself : then turn to any of the
other portions, and see how you like the flavour ! But to return to
our comparison. Take from Act ii., Gower, this bit ; note its affected
and obsolete form, and see whether it is by the same hand as the
last-quoted bit, which is almost modern in form and arrangement :

By many a dearne and painfull pearch

Of Pericles, the carefull search,

By the four opposing Coignes,

Which the world together joynes,

Is made with all due diligence,

That horse and saile, and high expence,

Can steed the quest. At last from Tyre,

Fame answering the most strange enquire,

To th' Court of King Simonides,

Are Letters brought, the tenour these.

1 Wrong. Sidney Walker held the theory of three authors, and rightly
divided the play. He only erred in fixing on Dekker for his third man. I
did not know this when I wrote the text.

IV, ON THE PLAY OF PERICLES. 201

And with the Epitaph compare

The Middle (Act i. Sc. 1)

I am no Viper, yet I feed
On mother's flesh which did me breed :
I sought a husband, in which labour
I found that kindnesse in a father.
Hee's father, sonne, and husbande mild,
I Mother, Wife, and yet his child.
How they may be, and yet in two,
As you will live, resolve it you.

Surely, we may conclude that there were three authors. But
who were they ?

The original manager and supervisor of the whole work was, as
Delius says, George Wilkins : he made the play as far as he wrote
it, from Twine's novel : he calls it " a poore infant of my braine ; "
he plumes himself on the arrangement of the Gower choruses as his
own invention. In this, Delius is undoubtedly right ; and to his
preface I refer for further information on the matter. In confirm
ation, however, of this theory, I give an analysis of the metre of the
only play of G. Wilkins which we possess — The Miseries of In-
forced Marriage, — which will be found to coincide very closely
with that of Acts i. ii. of Pericles given above, and which is more
like it than that of any other play among the hundreds I have
tabulated. There are in that play 526 rhyming lines, 155 double
endings, 15 Alexandrines, 102 short lines, 14 rhyming lines of less
than five measures, and a good deal of prose, which, seeing that the
play is about three times the length of the first two acts of Pericles,
gives a marvellously close agreement in percentage.

The second author was, I think, unquestionably W. Rowley. I
have not just now access to complete plays of this author in verse,
but comparison of the prose with that of A Match at Midnight, and
of the verse with that of the plays he wrote in conjunction with
Fletcher and Massinger, assures me absolutely of the truth of this
conjecture. Indeed, if I had complete plays of his in verse here,
the quantity of verse in the Pericles by Rowley is too small to build

202 IV. ON THE PLAY OF PERICLES.

a tabulation on. One peculiarity of his work, however, gives us a
strong confirmation ; it is always detached, and splits off from his
coadjutors' with a clean cleavage.

In Fletcher's Maid of the Mill, the work of the two men might
be published as two separate plays : so it is here. Rowley's scenes
are useful for no dramatic purpose, and might be cut out as cleanly
as his characters have been from the list of the actors' names.

Since writing the above, I find that, just about the time that
Pericles was written, GEORGE WILKINS was joined with John Day and
W. ROWLEY in writing " The travels of the three English brothers,
Sir Thomas, Sir Antony, and Sir Robert Shirley, an Historicall
play, printed in Quarto, 1607." This makes assurance doubly sure,
that ROWLEY and WILKINS were also joint-writers in the Pericles.
Moreover, the impudent use of Shakspere's name on the title-page
of The Birth of Merlin, in conjunction with Rowley's, indicates a
tradition that Shakspere and Rowley had worked on the same piece
or pieces at some period. A specimen of Rowley's style is given in
my second paper. Here is a bit of Wilkins' : —

That man undid me : he did blossoms blow
"Whose fruit proved poison, tho' 'twas good in show :
With him I'll parley and disrobe my thoughts
Of this wild frenzy that becomes me not.
A table, candle, stools, and all things fit !
I know he comes to chide me, and I'll hear him :
With our sad conference we will call up tears,
Teach doctors rules, instruct succeeding years.

Miseries of Inforced Marriage, Act v. Sc. 3

I have also had an opportunity of examining Wilkins' novel :
and although to my surprise I find that Delius has strained Wilkins'
expressions to a meaning that I think they will scarcely bear, I am
much pleased that the structure of the novel confirms my own con
clusions in all respects. It is I think quite worth while to give a
somewhat full account of it here.

In the first place the story closely coincides with that of the
drama : but the novel does not, as Collier says, " very much adopt

IV. ON THE PLAY OF PERICLES. 203

the language of the play," nor is there the slightest probability of
"recovering a lost portion of the language of Shakspere" from it.
Excepting the two passages following, I can find no portions of the
play accurately reproduced in the novel.

" A gentleman of Tyre, his name Pericles, his education been in
arts and arms, who, looking for adventures in the world, was, by the
rough and unconstant seas, most unfortunately bereft both of ships
and men, and after shipwreck thrown upon that shore." (p. 32.)
Compare Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 81, &c.

"Poor inch of nature !

" Thou art as rudely welcome to the world

' ( As ever princess' babe was,

" And hast as chiding a nativity,

"As fire, air, earth, and water can afford thee." (p. 44.)

Compare Act iii. Sc. 1, 1. 31, &c.

Of course Mr Collier says, " though it would be easy to multiply
proofs, I shall pursue this point no further." But this is a common
device with him. He quotes every syllable in favour of his theories,
and then insinuates that his quotations are only samples of a large
stock kept behind in reserve. In the same way, in his endeavour to
show that Edivard III. is entirely written by Shakspere, he gives a
few quotations without references, all from the small portion (2^-
scenes) that Shakspere did really write in that drama, and then tells
us that the whole play is Shakspere's, that he (Mr Collier) might
" quote the whole Quarto," that "the three last acts are all conducted
with true Shaksperian energy and vigour," &c., &c. In the same
way Mr Collier quotes from Wilkins, " If, as you say, my lord, you
are the governor, let not your authority, which should teach you to
rule others, be the means to make you misgovern yourself. If
the eminence of your place came unto you by descent, and the
royalty of your blood, let not your life prove your birth a bastard :
If it were thrown upon you by opinion, make good that opinion was
the cause to make you great," and the next seven lines which continue
in the same style, and adds, "If these thoughts and this language be
not the thoughts and the language of Shakspere, I am much mis-

204 IV. ON THE PLAY OF PERICLES.

taken, and I have read him to little purpose." I should be sorry to
say Mr Collier had read Shakspere to little purpose, as in his early
time he did good service : but I quite coincide with him in reckon
ing this view of Wilkins' novel as one of the " mistakes " he has of
late years so often fallen into.

The fact is, that Wilkins in his novel and in his play (Miseries
of Enforced Marriage) has many blank-verse lines in the midst of
his prose, and not lines only, but passages. I here give some from
his novel :

1. He did not well so to abuse himself

To waste his body there with pining sorrow, (p. 19.)

2. That this their city, who not two summers younger,
Did so excel in pomp and bore a state

Whom all her neighbours envied for her greatness, (p. 21.)

3. Before help came, up came the fish expected,
But proved indeed to be a rusty armour, (p. 28.)

4. Begging this armour of the fishermen,

And telling them, that with it he could show
The virtue he had learn' d in arms, and tried
His chivalry for their princess Thaisa. (p. 29.)

5. Vengeance, with a deadly arrow, drawn
From forth the quiver of his wrath,
Prepared by lightning, and shot on by thunder,
Hit, and struck dead

These proud incestuous creatures where they sat,
Leaving their faces blasted, and their bodies
Such a contemptful object on the earth
That all

Those eyes but now with reverence lookt upon them,
All hands that served them, and all knees adored them,
Scorn'd now to touch them, loath'd now to look upon them,
And disdained now to give them burial, (p. 33.)

6. Ay, traitor,

That thus disguised art stolen into my court
With witchcraft of thy actions to bewitch
The yielding spirit of my tender child.

IV. ON THE TLAY OF PERICLES. . 205

Which name of traitor being again redoubled

Pericles then instead of humbleness

Seemed not to forget his ancient courage, (p. 38.)

7. Equals to equals, good to good is joined,
This not being so, the bavin of your mind
In rashness kindled must again be quenched
Or purchase our displeasure, (p. 40.)

8. I have read of some Egyptians
Who after four hours' death (if man may call it so)
Have raised impoverisht bodies like to this

Unto their former health, (p. 48.)

9. First what offence her ignorance had done
(For wittingly she knew she could do none)
Either to him that came to murder her

Or her that hired him. (p. 57.)

10. Lady, for such your virtues are, a far
More worthy style your beauty challenges.
I hither came with thoughts intemperate,
Foul and deform'd, the which your pains

So well have lav^d that tl ey are now white,

Continue still to all so ; and for my part,

Who hither came but to have paid the price,

A piece of gold for your virginity,

Now give you twenty to relieve your honesty.

It shall become you still

To be even as you are a piece of goodness,

The best wrought up that ever Nature made,

And if that any shall enforce you ill

If you but send for me I am your friend, (p. 66.)

11. But sorrows' pipes will burst have they not rest. (p. 71.)

These passages occur in all parts of the story, and quotations can
be multiplied of them : but these already given would be too numer
ous, were it not that I wished to show that they not only occur in
the parts of the novel corresponding to the Wilkins, Rowley, and
Shakspere parts of the play indiscriminately, but also in passages of
pure narrative, as well as in the speeches of the characters. In fact

206 IV. ONr THE PLAY OF PERICLES.

they are inseparable from Wilkins' style, and very often his prose
is in better iambic rhythm than his verse is. This entirely upsets
Mr Collier's argument on the passage,

" His blood was yet untainted, but with the heat
" Got by the wrong the king had offered him,
" And that he boldly durst, and did defy himself,
" His subjects, and the proudest danger that
" Either tyranny or treason could inflict upon her."

As to which Mr Collier says,

" Would the above have got so readily into blank verse if it had
not in fact been so originally written, and recited by the actor when
Pericles was first performed 1 "

I should not indeed have thought it necessary to have noticed
these views of Mr Collier's, were it not that both Mommsen and
Delius have been misled by them : which is surprising, as both of
them have excellent ears for rhythm.

There are however other more important points in this Wilkins
novel that demand our attention j for instance, the difference in his
treatment of the rhyming documents in the play. The riddle which
occurs in the part he wrote himself, he quotes in exactly the same
form : but the inscription on Thaisa's coffin he alters thus : —

If ere it hap this chest be driven
On any shore or coast or haven,
I, Pericles, the prince of Tyre
(That, losing her, lost all desire),
Intreat you give her burying,
Since she was daughter to a king,
This gold I give you as a fee ;
The gods requite your charity !

As he has put in his novel the four lines of undoubted Shakspere
quoted above, — " Thou art as rudely welcome," &c., — he must have
had Shakspere's work before him when he wrote the novel, and this
inscription must therefore have been altered to show how much
better he could do it himself. I do not think his attempt a success.
In like manner he has altered Rowley's epitaph on Marina into

IV. ON THE PLAY OF PERICLES. 207

The fairest, sweetest, and most best, lies here,
Who wither'd in her spring of year.
In Nature's garden, though by growth a bud,
She was the chiefest flower, she was good.

Had he written this himself originally, he would have done it, as he
has all the rhymes in his part that are not dialogue, in octo-syllabics.
But his crowning achievement is the song he quotes from Twine,
given to Marina, and which Delius — if I understand him rightly —
takes to be the same that Shakspere intends her to sing.

Among the harlots foul I walk,

Yet harlot none am I ;
The Rose among the thorns doth grow,

And is not hurt thereby :
The thief that stole me sure I think

Is slain before this time ;
A Bawd me bought, yet am I not

Defiled by fleshly crime.
Nothing were pleasanter to me,

Than parents mine to know ;
I am the issue of a king,

My blood from kings doth flow.
In time the Heavens may mend my state,

And send a better day ;
For sorrow adds unto our griefs,

But helps not any way.
Shew gladness in your countenance,

Cast up your cheerful eyes,
That God remains that once of nought

Created earth and skies.

The treatment, then, of these lyrics strongly confirms our con
clusion as to the share Wilkins had in writing the play, and so does
the exact similarity of the style of his verse-prose to that of the
prosaic verse of the drama : that he should have expanded and
given more detail in the prose work is only natural ; as, for instance,
in giving Thaisa's letter to her father in full : there is not, however,

208 IV. OX THE PLAY OF PERICLES.

the slightest pretext for foisting any of the novel into the play. On
the contrary, some of the alterations are essentially undramatic. For
example, the following passage, which Delius praises, is very inferior
to the treatment in the play (Act ii. Sc. 2, end) : " But Cerimon, who
best knew that now, with anything to discomfort her, might breed
a relapse which would be unrecoverable, intreated her to be cheer'd ;
for her Lord was well, and that anon when the time was more
fitting, and that her decayed spirits were repaired, he would gladly
speak with her." Is Thaisa a petulant baby, then, to be coaxed and
petted into reason? And again: in Act v. Sc. 1, Pericles, accord
ing to Wilkins, strikes Marina on the face ! His Marina certainly
deserves any punishment for her detestable song j but Shakspere' s
Pericles is a gentleman and a father.

A much more important matter, however, is, that when Pericles
in the novel, in obedience to Diana, tells the story of his life, he
gives all the events that happened at Antioch and Pentapolis in full,
the riddle and the tournament, and all the rest of it. None of this
occurs in the play: Shakspere carefully confines Pericles's speech to
the events that concerned his sole subject, the life of Marina. A
stronger argument that his work was not founded on Wilkins' play,
but done previously and independently, one cannot well have : and
in like manner afterwards in the same scene in the novel, Thaisa
alludes to Pericles having been her schoolmaster ; Shakspere has not
this allusion : and finally, the novel ends with Pericles burning the
Bawd, Marina rewarding the Pandar, Pericles rewarding the fisher
man, stoning Cleomenes and Dion, and succeeding to the kingdom of
Antinch, all of which is foreign to the Shakspere play. In fact, the
shifts that critics who hold the common opinions as to this play are
reduced to, are strong arguments in favour of my views. Delius, for
instance, is obliged to make such assumptions as these : 1. That the
abundance of material compelled the author of the play to introduce
Gower and the dumb show business : — the fact being, that the play
is an unusually short one, and that there was abundance of space for
all that Wilkins wanted to introduce : his poverty of invention was
the only drawback to his doing so. 2. That in Act v. Sc. 3, some
of Wilkins' work is retained and patent up by Shakspere : why, he

IV. ON THE PLAY OF PERICLES. 209

could have rewritten it with half the trouble of cobbling up
Wilkins. 3. That in the Epilogue and 5-foot Gower part, Shak-
spere imitated Wilkins ! The author of Lear imitated the author of
the Miseries of Enforced Marriage ! It's true he couldn't keep up
the imitation, and the real Shakspere shows in the dialogue. 0 ye
higher critics, this is your criticism ! 4. Finally, that the Gower
in Act v. is like Prosper's Epilogue : and that Wilkins wrote the
parts of Timon that are not Shakspere's. I say nothing to this : I
am dumb with admiration, and conclude with one little piece of
lower criticism, that the author of " she was rather a deserving bed
fellow for a prince, than a play-fellow for so rascally an assembly "
(p. 62 in the novel), was probably author also of the 1st chorus in
the play,

To seek her as a bed-fellow,

In marriage pleasures play-fellow.

F. G. FLEAY.

TRANSACTIONS. 14

THE

STRANGE AND WORTHY ACCIDENTS

IN

THE BIRTH AND LIFE

OF

MARINA.

BY WILLIAM SHAKSPERE.

EXTRACTED BY F. G. FLEAY, M.A.

FROM THE PLAY CALLED

PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE,

AS IMPRINTED AT LONDON FOR HENRY GOSSON, 1609.

WITH EMEND A TIONS AND NOTES.

PRINTED FOR THE NEW SHAKSPERE SOCIETY.

1874.

211

THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF

MARINA,

DAUGHTER OF

PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE,

[Scene i.]
Enter Pericles a Shipboard.

Peri. Thou God of this great vaft, rebuke thefe furge*
Which wafli both heauen and hell -, and thou, that haft
Vpon the windes commaund, bind them in Brafle,

4 Hauing [re]call'd them from the deepe ; O Hill
Thy deafning dreadfull thunders j gently quench
Thy nimble fulphirous flames : O how, Lychorida,
How does my Queene ? thou ftormeft venomouily.

8 Wilt thou fpeat all thy felf ? the Seamans whittle
Is as a whifper in the eares of death,
Unheard. Lychorida. Lucina, oh
Diuineft Patrioneffe, and midwife gentle
12 To thofe that cry by night, convey thy Deitie
Aboard our dauncing Boat, make fwift the pangues
Of my Queenes travayles. Now, Lychorida.

Enter Lychorida.

Lychor. Heere is a thing too young for fuch a place $
1 6 Who, if it had conceit, would die, as I

Am like to doe. Take in your armes this peece
Of your dead Queene.

Peri. How, how, Lyctionaa ''

Lycho. Patience, good fir, doe not afiift the ftorme,
20 Heer's all that is left living of your Queene •-

214 THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. rSC. 2.

>~

[Scene 2.]
Enter Lord Cerymon with a Servant.

Cery. Phylemon, ho.

Enter Phylemon.

Phyl. Doth my Lord call ?

Cery. Get Fire

And meat for thefe poore men,
T'as been a turbulent and flormie night.
4 Seru. I haue been in many : but fuch a night as this,
Till now, I neare endured.

Cery. Your Maifter will be dead ere you returne 3
There's nothing can be immured to nature,
8 That can recouer him : giue this to the Pothecary,
And tell me how it workes.

Enter two Gentlemen.

1. Gent. Good morrow, [Sir.]

2. Gent. Good morrow to your Lordfhip.
Cery. Gentlemen, why doe you ftirre fo early ?

i Gent. Sir,

12 Our lodgings, ftanding bleak vpon the Sea,

Shooke as the earth did quake : The very principals
Did feeme to rend and all to topple ; pure
Surprize and feare made me to quite the houfe.
1 6 2. Gent. That is the caufe we trouble you fo early,
'Tis not our husbandry.

Cery. O you fay well,

i. Gent. But I much marvaile that your Lordfhip, hauirig
Kich tire about you, ihould at thefe early howers
20 Shake off the golden llumber of repofej
It is moft ftrange,

Nature ihould be fo conuerfant with Paine,
Being thereto not compelled.

Cery. I hold it, euer

24 Vertue and Cunning were endowments greater

SC. 2.] THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. 215

Then Noblenefle & Riches 5 Carelefie heyres
May the two latter darken and expend j
But immortalitie attendes the former,
28 Making a man a god : 'tis knowne, I euer

Haue ftudied Phyficke, through which fecret Art,
By turning ore Authorities, I haue,
Togeather with my practize, made famyliar
32 To me and to my ayde, the bleft infunons
That dwels in "vegetiues, in Mettals, Stones :
And [I] can fpeake of the difturbances
That Nature works, and of her cures j which doth
36 Giue me a more content in courfe of true delight
Then to be thirfty after tottering honour,
Or Tie my treafure vp in filken Bagges,
To pleafe the Foole and Death.

40 2. Gent. Your honour has through Ephefus poured foorth
Your charitie, and hundreds call themfelues
Your Creatures, who by you haue been reilored j
And not your knowledge, your perfonall payne, but euen
44 Your purfe flill open, hath built Lord Cerimon
Such ftrong renowne, as time mail neer decay.

Enter two or three with a Chijl.
Seru. So, lift there.
Cer. What is that ?

Ser. Sir, euen now

Did the Sea tone vp on our more this Chift j
48 'Tis of fome wracke.

Cer. Set't downe, let's looke vpon't.

2. Gent. 'Tis like a Coffin, fir.
Cer. What ere it be,

'Tis woondrous heauie ; wrench it open ftraight :
If the Seas ftomacke be ore-charg'd with Gold,
52 It is a good constraint of Fortune it
Belches upon's.

2. Gent. 'Tis fo, my Lord.

Cer. How clofe

216 THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. [SO. 2.

'Tis caulkt and bittumed. Did the fea cafl it vp ?

Ser. I never faw fo huge a billow, fir,
56 As toft it vpon fhore.

Cer. Wrench't open -, soft : it fmels

Moft fweetly in my fenfe.

2. Gent. A delicate Odour.

Cer. As euer hit my noftrill : fo, vp with it.
Oh you most potent Gods, what have we here,
60 A Corfe ?

1. Gent. Moft ftrange.

Cer. Shrowded in cloth of ft ate,

Balm'd and entreafured with full bagges of Spices.
A Pafport too. Apollo, perfect mee
T th' Charafters.
64 Heere I giue to vnderjland,

If ere this Coffin driues a land,
I King Pericles haue loft
This Queene, worth all our mundine coft :
68 Whojinds her, giue her burying :

She was the Daughter of a King.
Eejldes this treafurefor a fee,
The Gods requit his charitie.
72 If thou liueft Pericles, thou haft a heart

That euer cracks for woe : this chaunc'd to night.

2. Gmt. Moft likely, iir.

Cer. Nay certainely to night ;

For looke how frefh ihe looks. They were too rough,
76 That threw her in the fea. Make fire within ;

Fetch hither all my boxes in my Clofet :

Death may vfurpe on Nature many howers,

And yet The fire of life kindle againe
go The o're-preft fpirits : I heard of an jEgiptian

That had nine houres lien dead,

Who was by good applyaunces recoured.

Enter one with Napkins and Fire.

Well fayd, well fayd; the fire and [the] clothes;

SO. 2, 3.] THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. 217

84 The rough and wofull mufick that we haue,

Caufe it to found beieech you :

The Viall 6nce more j how thou ftirr'ft, thou blocke.

The Muficke there : I pray you, giue her ayre j
88 Gent'men, this Queene will line j nature awakes

A warme breath out of her j she hath not been

Entranc'ft aboue fiue howers ; see how me ginnes

To blow into lifes flower againe.

1. Gen. The heauens
92 Through you, encreafe our wonder, and fets vp

Your fame for euer.

Cer. She is allue ; behold

Her ey-lids, cafes to thofe heauenly jewels
Which Pericles hath loft, begin to part
96 Their fringes of bright gold ; the Diamonds
Of a moft prayled water doth appear,
To make the world twife rich.

Liue, and make 's weepe to heare your fate, faire creature,
i oo Rare as you feeme to bee.

Shee moves.

Thai. O dear Diana>

Where am I ? where's my Lord ? what world is this ?

2. Gent. Is not this ftrange ?

i. Gent. Mofl rare.

Ceri. Hulh (my gentle neighbours)

Lend me your hands ; to the next Chamber beare her ;
104 Get linnen : now this matter muft be lookt to,
For her relapfe is mortall : come [on,] come,
And, Efcelapius, guide us.

They carry her away. Exeunt omnes.

[Scene 3.]
Enter Pericles, At Tharfus, with Cleon and Dionifia.

Per. Moft honourd Cleon, I muft needs be gone
My twelue months are expir'd, and Tyrus ftandes

218 THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. [SC. 3.

In a litigious peace : you and your Lady
4 Take from my heart all thankfulnefle. The Gods
Make vp the reft vpon you.

Cle. Your fhafts of fortune,

Though they [have] hurt you mortally, yet glance
Full wandringly on vs.

DL O your fweet Queene.

8 That the ftrict fates had pleafed y' had brought her hither
To haue bleft mine eies with her.

Per. We cannot but obey

The powers aboue vs j could I rage and rore,
As doth the Sea (he lies in, yet the end
12 Muft be as 'tis : my gentle babe Marina,

Whom (for ih' was born at Sea) I'ue nam'd fo, here
I charge your charitie withall ; & leaue her
The infant of your care, befeeching you
1 6 To giue her princely training, that {he may
Be maner'd as me is borne.

Cleon. Feare not (my Lord) but thinke

Your Grace, that fed my Countrie with your Corne,
For which the peoples prayers Hill fall vpon you,
20 Muft in your child be thought on. If negledion
Should therein make me vile, the common body,
By you relieu'd, would force me to my duety j
But, if to that my nature neede a fpurre,
24 The Gods reuenge it upon me and mine,
To the end of generation.

Per. I belceue you.

Your honour and your goodnes teach me too't
Without your vowes. Till me be maried, madame,
28 By bright Diana, whom we honour, all
VnfiiTer'd {hall this hair of mine remayn,
Though I mew ill in't : fo I take my leaue :
Good Madame, make me blefled in your care
32 In bringing vp my Childe.

Dio^.. I haue one my felfe,

SO. 3, 4, 5.] THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. 21C

Who fhall not be more deere to my refpect
Than yours, my Lord.

Peri. Madam, my thanks and prayers.

Cle. Weel bring your Grace e'en to the edge o'th'more,
36 Then giue you vp to the mask'd Neptune, and
The gentleft winds of heauen.

Peri. I will imbrace

Your offer, come, deerft Madame : O no teares,
Licherida, no teares;

40 Looke to your litle Miflris j on whofe grace
You may depend hereafter : come, my Lord.

[Scene 4.]

Enter Cerimon, and Thaifa.

Cer. Madam, this Letter, and fome certaine Jewels,
Lay with you in your Coffer, which are at your command :
Know you the Character ?

Thai. It is my Lords.

4 That I was fhipt at Sea, I well remember,
Euen on my eaning time : but whether there deliuered,
By the holie gods, I cannot rightly fay :
But lince King Pericles, my wedded Lord,
8 I nere mall fee againe,
A vaftall liuerie will I take me to,
And neuer more haue joy.

Cer. Madam, if this you purpofe as ye Ipeake,
1 2 Dianaes Temple is not diftant farre,

Where, till your date expire, you may abide.
Moreouer if you pleafe a Neece of mine
Shall there attend you.
1 6 Thai. My recompence is thanks, [&] that is all,

Yet my good will is great, though the gift fmall. Exit.

[Scene 5.]

Enter Dioni%a, and Leonine.
Dion. Thy oath : remember, thou haft fworne to doo't.

220 THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. [SO. 6.

'Tis but a blowe, which neuer mall bee knowne.
Thou canfl not doe a thing in the worlde fo foone,
4 To yeelde thee fo much profite. Let not confcience,
Which is but cold, inflaming loue i' thy bofome,
Enflame too nicelie -, nor let pittie, which
Euen women haue cafl off, melt thee, but be
8 A fouldier to thy purpofe.

Leon. I 'le doo't ; but yet me is a goodly Creature.
Dion. The fitter then the Gods mould haue her. Here
Sh' comes weeping for her onely Miflrefle death :
1 2 Thou art refolude ?

Leon. I am refolude.

Enter Marina with a Basket of Flowers.

Mari. No : I will rob [robed] Tellus of her weed,

To ftrowe thy greene with Flowers : the yellowes, blewes,

The purple Violets and Marigolds,
1 6 Shall as a Carpet hang vpon thy Graue,

While Sommer dayes doth laft. Aye me, poore Maid,

Borne in a tempeft, when my Mother dide :

This world to me is like a laiting ftorme,
20 Whirring me from my friends.

Dion. How now, Marina ? why doe yow keep alone ?

How chaunce my Daugh'ter is not with you ?

Doe not confume your bloud with forrowing :
24 Haue you a Nurfe of me. Lord, how your favour

Is changd with this vnprofitable woe :

Come [go you on the beach,] giue me your Flowers.

Ere the Sea marre it, walke with Leonine ;
28 The ayre is quicke there, and it perces and

Sharpens the ftomacke, come, [L.] Leonine,

Take her by th'arme, walke with her.

Mari. No I pray you ;

lie not bereaue you of your Seruant.

Dion. Come,

32 I love the King your Father, and your felfe,

SO. 5.J THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. 221

With more then forraine heart j wee every day
Expeft him here : when he mall come and find
Our Paragon to all reports thus blafted,
36 He will repent the breadth of his great voyage ;
Blame both my Lord and me, that we have taken
No care to your beft courfes. Go I pray you,
Walke and be chearfull once againe ; referue
40 That excellent complexion, which did fteale
The eyes of yong and old. Care not for me,
I can go home alone.

Maii. Well, I will goe -,

But yet I'ue no defire too it.

Dion. Come, come,

44 I know 'tis good for you :

Walke halfe an houre, Leonine, at the leaft :
Remember what I've fed.

Leon. I warrant you, Madam.

Dion. He leaue you, my fweete Ladie, for a while •.
48 Pray [you] walke foftly, doe not heate your bloud :
What, I muft haue a care of you*

Mari. My thanks, fweete Madam.

Is this wind Wefterlie that blowes >

Leon. South- weft.

Mari. When I was borne, the wind was North.

Leon. Was't fo ?

52 Mari. My father, as nurfe faid, did neuer feare,
But cryed good Sea-men to the Sailers, [and]
Galling his Kingly hands, haling [the] ropes,
And clafping to the Maft, endured a Sea
56 That almoft burft the decke.

Leon. When this ?

Mari. When I was borne.

Neuer was waues nor winde more violent }
And from the ladder-tackle wafhes off
A canvas clymer. Ha, fes one, wolt out ?
60 And with a dropping induftrie they skip

222 THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA* [SO. 6.

From ftern to fterne : the Boat-fwaine whittles, and
The Maifter calles and trebles their confufion.
Leon. Come, fay your prayers.
Mari. What meane you ?

64 Leon. If you require a little fpace for praier,
I graunt it, pray ; but bee not tedious, for
The Gods are quick of eare, and I am fworne
To doe my work with hafte.

Mari. Why will you kill me >

68 Leon. To fatisfie my Lady.

Mari. Why would iliee haue mee kil'd ?

Now, as I can remember, by my troth,
I neuer did her hurt in all my life $
I neuer fpake bad worde, nor did ill turne
72 To anie liuing creature :

Beleeue me la, I never killd a Moufe,
Nor hurt a Fly : I trode vpon a worme
Againft my will, but I wept for it : How
76 Have I offended [her], wherein my death
Might yeeld her anie profit, or my life
Imply her any danger ?

Leon. My Commifiion

Is not to reafon of the deed, but doo't.
80 Mari. You will not doo't for all the world I hope :
You are well fauour'd, and your lookes fore-mew
You haue a gentle heart ; I faw you latelie
When you caught hurt in parting two that fought .
84 Good-footh it ftiew'd well in you ; do fo now.
Your Ladie feeks my life $ come you betweene,
And fave poore mee the weaker.

Leon. I am fworne,

And will difpatch.

Enter Pirates.

Pirat. i. Hold villainc.

Pirat. 2. A prize, a prize.

80. 5, 6.] THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. 223

88 Pirat. 3. Halfe part mates, half part.
. Come let us haue her aboord fodainly. Exit.

Enter Leonine.

Leon. Thefe roguing theeues ferue the great Pyrate Valdes ;

And they haue feized Marina. Let her goe :
92 Ther's no hope ihee'le returne : He fweare fhees dead,

And throwne into the Sea ; but He fee further.

Perhappes they will but pleafe themfelves vpon her,

Not carrie her aboord. If fhee remaine,
96 Whome they have rauifht, muft by me be (laine.

[Scene 6.]
Enter Cleon and Dioni%ia.

Dion. Why are you foolifh, can it be vndone ?

Cleon. O Dioniza, fuch a peece of flaughter,
The Sunne and Moone nere lookt vpon.

Dion. 1 thinke

4 Youle turne a childe again.

Cleon. Were I chiefe Lord of all this fpacious world,
Ide give it to vndo the deede. O Ladie,
Much lefTe in bloud then vertue, yet a Prince?
8 To equall any lingle Crowne a'th'earth,
Ith juftice of compare. O villaine Leonine,
Whom thou haft poifned too :
If thou hadft drunke to him, 'tad beene a kindnefle
1 2 Becomming well thy fact. What canft thou fay,
When noble Pericles mail demaund his child ?

Dion. That fhee is dead. Nurfes are not the fates
To fofter it, jior ever to preferue.
1 6 She dide at night ; lie fay fo -y who can crofle it ?
Vnlefle you play the pious Innocent,
And for an honeft attribute, crie out
Shee dyde by foul play.

Cle. O goe too : well, well :

TRANSACTIONS 15

224 THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. [SO. 6.

20 Of all the faults beneath the heauens, the gods
Doe like this worft.

Dion. Be one of thole that thinkes

The pettie wrens of Tharfus will file hence,
And open this to Pericles ; I do fhame
24 To thinke of what a noble ftraine you are,
And of how coward a fpirit.

Cle. To fuch proceeding,

Who euer but his approbation added,
Though not his prime confent, he did not flow
28 From honorable fourfes.

Dion. Be 't fo then,

Yet none does knowe but you how fhee came dead,
Nor none can knowe [now,] Leonine being gone.
Shee did diftaine my childe, and ftoode betweene
32 Her and her fortunes : none woulde looke on her,
But caft their gazes on Marinas face j
Whileft ours was blurted at, and helde a Mawkin,
Not worth the time of day. It pierft me thorow,
36 And though you call my courfe vnnaturall,
You not your childe well louing, yet I finde
It greets mee as an enterprize of kindnefle
Perform d to your fole daughter.

Cle. Heauens forgiue it.

40 Dion. And as for Pericles, what fhould hee fay ?
We wept after her hearfe, & yet we mourne :
Her monument 's almoft fmifht, & her epitaphs
In glittring golden characters, expres
44 A generrall prafe to her, and care in vs,
At whofe expence 'tis done.

Cle. Th' art like the Harpie,

Which, to betray, doeft, with thine Angells face, ...;,? ....
Ceaze with thine Eagles talents. ,.

48 Dion. You are like one, that fuperfticioully

Doth fweare too th'Gods, that Winter kills the flies/

But yet I know, youle doe as I aduife. ' Exit.

SO. 7.] THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. 225

[Scene 7.]
Enter Helicanus, to him two Saylors.

1. Say. Where is Lord Helicanus? hee can refolue you.

0 here he is.

Sir, there is a barge put off from Metaline,
4 And in it is Lyjlmachus the Gouernour,
Who craues to come aboord. What is your will >
Helly. That hee haue his. Call vp fome gent' men.

2. Say. Ho,
Gent'men, my Lord calls.

Enter two or three Gentlemen.

ist Gent. Doth your lordmip call ?

8 Heli. Gent'men, there's fome of worth would come aboord.

1 pray ye greet him fairely.

Enter Lyfimachus.

Hell. Sir, this 's the man that can in ought you would
Refolue you.

Lyf. Hayle, reuerent fyr, the Gods preferue you.

12 Hell. And you fir, to out-line the age I am,
And die as I would doe.

Li. You wifh mee well j

Beeing on more, honoring of Neptunes triumphs,
Seeing this goodly veffeli ride before vs,
1 6 I made to it, to knowe of whence you are.

Hell. Firft, what 's your place ?

Z/y, I am

The Gouernour of this place you lie before.

Hell. Our veflel is of Tyre ; in it the King,
20 A man, who for this three moneths hath not fpoken
To anie one, nor taken fuftenance
But to prorogue his grief.

Li. Upon what ground

Is his diftemperatTipe t

226 THE BIRTH AND LIFE OP MARINA. [sc. 7.

Hell. It would be

24 Too tedious to repeat, but the mayne griefe
Springs fro the lolfe
Of a beloued daughter, & a wife.

Li. May wee not fee him ?

28 Hell. You may, but bootlefie is your fight j hee will
Not fpeake to any.

Lyf. Yet let me obtaine

My wilh.

Hell. Behold him : this was a goodly perfon.
Till the difafter that one mortal night
32 Droue him to this.

Lyf. Sir King,

All hail, the gods preferue you -, haile, Royall Sir.

Hell. It is in vaine, he will not fpeake t'you.

Lord. Sir,

We haue a maid in Metiline, I durft wager
36 Would win fome words of him.

Lyf. 'Tis well bethought.

She, queftionlefle, with her fweet harmonic,
And other choife attractions, would allure
And make a battrie through his deafend parts,
40 Which now are mid-way ftoptj

Shee is all happie, as the fair'ft of all ;
And [with] her fellow maides, [is] now upon
The leauie ihelter that abutts againfl
44 The Iflands fide.

Hell. Sure all['s] effeaieflej yet

Nothing wee will omit that beares recoueries name.
But fince your kindnefle we haue ftretcht thus farre,
Let vs befeech you,

48 That we may haue prouifion for our golde $
Wherein we are not destitute for want,
But wearie for the ftalenefs.

Lyf. O, fir, a curtefie -,

Which if we fhould denie, the moft iuft God[s]

SC. 7.] THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. 227

52 For euery grafte would fend a Caterpillar,
And fo inflict our Prouince : yet once more
Let mee intreate to knowe at large the caufe
Of your Kings forrow.

Hell. Sit, fir, I will recount it to you j

56 But fee, I am preuented.

Lyf. O beer's the Ladie that

I fent for. Welcome faire one : Is it not
A goodly prefence ?

Hell. Shee's a gallant Ladie.

Lyf. Shee's fuch a one, that, were I well aflurde,
60 Came, of a gentle kinde and noble flocke,

I'd wifh no better choife, and thinke me rarely wed.
Fair one, all goodnefTe that confifts in bountie,
Expect euen here, where is a kingly patient.
64 If that thy profperous and artificiall feat
Can draw him but to anfwere thee in ought,
Thy facred Phyficke mall receiue fuch pay,
As thy defires can wifh.

Mar. Sir, I will vfe

6b My vtmofl Ikill in his recure j provided
That none but I and my companion maid
Be fuffered to come neere him.

Lyf. Come, let vs leaue her,

And the Gods make her profperous.

The So?ig.

72 Lyf. Markt he your mufick ?

Mar. No, nor lookt on vs.

Lyf. See : fhe will fpeake to him.
Mar. Hail, fir.

My Lord, lend eare.

Per. Hum, ha.

Mar. I am a maid,

My Lorde, that nere before inuited eyes,
76 But haue beene gazed on like a Comet : fhe Ipeaks,

228 THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. [SC. 7.

My Lord, that may be hath endured a griefe
Might equall yours, if both were iuftly wayde ;
Though wayward fortune did maligne my ftate,
80 My deriuation was from anceftors

Who flood equiuolent with mightie Kings j
But time hath rooted out my parentage,
And to the world and augward cafualties
84 Bound me in feruitude. I will defift.

But there is fomething glowes upon my cheek,
And whifpers in mine ear, "Not till he fpeake."
Per. My fortunes, parentage, good parentage
88 To equal mine ? was it not thus ? what fay you ?

Mar. I fed, my Lord, if you did know my parentage,
You would not do me violence.

Per. I do thinke fo.

Pray you turne your eyes vpon me.

92 You are like fome thing that — what Countrey woman ?
Here of thefe ihores ?

Mar. No, nor of any mores ;

Yet I was mortally brought forth, and am
No other then I appeare.

96 Per. T am great with woe, and mall deliuer weeping :
My deareft wife was like this maid ; and fuch a one
My daughter might haue beene : my Queenes fquare browes,
Her ftature to an inch, as wand-like ftraight,
i°o As filuer voyft, her eyes as jewel-like

And cafte as richly, in pace another Juno :
Who flames the eares me feedes, and makes them hungrie,
The more me giues them fpeech. Where doe you liue ?
104 Mar. Where I am but a flraunger, from the decke
You may difcerne the place.

Per. Where were you bred '

And how atchieu'd you thefe indowments which
You make more rich to owe ?

Mar. If I mould tell

108 My hyftorfe, it would feeme.like [to] lies

SC. 7.] THE BIRTH AND LIFE OP MARINA. 229

Difdaind in the reporting.

Per. Prythee fpeake :

Falfenefle cannot come from thee, for thou lookeft
Modefl as iuftice, and thou feemeft a Pallace
112 For the crownd truth to dwell in. I wil beleeue thee,
And make my fenfes credit thy relation,
To points that feeme impoffible ; for thou look'ft
Like one I lou'd indeede. What were thy friends ?
116 Did'ft thou not fay, when I did pufh thee backe,
Which was when I perceiu'd thee, that thou cam'ft
From good difcending ?

Mar. So indeed I did.

Per. Report thy parentage : I think thou faid'fl
1 20 Thou had'ft beene toft from wrong to iniurie ;

And that thou thought'st thy griefs might equall mine,
If both were opened [juftly.]

Mar. Some fuch thing

I fed, and fed no more but what my thoughts
124 Did warrant me was likely.

Per. Tell thy ftorie.

If thine confider'd proue the thoufand part
Of my enduraunce, thou art a man, and I
Have fuffered like a girle, yet thou doeft looke
I28 Like patience, gazing on Kings graues, and fmiling
Extremitie out of a£t. What were thy friends ?
Howe loft thou [them] ? thy name, my moft kinde Virgin.
Recount, I do befeech thee : Come, fit by mee.
132 Mar. My name's Marina.

Per. Oh I am mockt, and thou

By fome infenced God fent hi'er to make
The world to laugh at me.

Mar. Patience, good fir,

Or here He ceaie.

Per. Nay He be patient. ;

136 Thou little knowft howe thou doeft ftartle me
To call thy felfe Marina.

230 THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. faC. 7.

Mar. [Sir,] the name

Was giuen mee by one that had ibme power •
My father and a King.

Per. How, a Kings daughter,

140 And call'd Marina ?

Mar. You fed you would beleeue me,

But not to bee a troubler of your peace,
I will end here.

Per. But are you flefh and bloud ?

Have you a working pujfe, and are no Fairie ?
'144 [No] motion? well, fpeake on, where were you borne'
And wherefore call'd Marina ?

Mar. Called Marinat

For I was borne at fea.

Per. At fea ? what mother ?

Mar. My mother was the Daughter of a King ;
148 Who died the very minute I was borne,
As my good Nurfe Licherida hath oft
Deliuered weeping.

Per. O Hop there a little.

This is the rareit drearne that ere duld fleepe
152 Did mocke fad fooles withall. This cannot be.

My daughter's buried. Well, where were you bred ?
He hear you more j too th' bottome of your ftorie ;
And neuer interrupt you.

Mar. You [do] fcorne.

56 Beleeue me it were beft I did giue ore.

Per. I will beleeue you by the fyllable
Of what you mail deliuer. Yet giue me leaue :
How came you in thefe parts ? where were you bred ?
1 60 Mar. The King my Father did in Tharfus leaue me,
Till cruel Clean with his wicked wife
Did feeke to murther me : and hauing wooed
A villaine to attempt it, who ha'ing drawne to doo't,
164 A crew of Pirats came and refcued me,
Brought me to Metaline. But, good fir-,

SO. 7.] THE BIRTH AND LIFE OP MARINA. 231

Whi'er wil you haue me ? why doe you weep ? It may be
You ihinke me an impeller. No good fayth.
1 68 I am the daughter to King Pericles,
If good King Pericles be.
Per. Hoe, Hellicanus.
Hel. Calls my Lord ?

Per. Thou art a graue and noble Counfeller,
I72 Moft wife in generall. Tell me, if thou can'ft,
What this mayde is, or what is like to bee,
That thus hath made mee weepe.

Hel. I know not ; but

Here is the Regent, fir, of Metaline,
176 Speakes nobly of her.

Lyf. She would neuer tell

Her parentage ; being demanded that,
She would lit Hill and weepe.

Per. Oh Hellicanus, ftrike me ; honord fir,
1 80 Giue mee a gam ; put me to prefent paine j
Leaft this great fea of ioyes ruming vpon me,
Ore-bear the mores of my mortalitie,
And drowne me with their fweetnefle. Oh come hither,
184 Thou that begetft him that did thee beget,

Thou that waft borne at fea, buried at Tharfus,
And found at fea again : O Hellicanus,
Downe on thy knees, thanke th' holie gods, as loud
1 88 As thunder threatens vsj this is Marina.

What was thy mothers name ? tell me but that,
For truth can neuer be confirm 'd enough,
Though doubts did euer fleepe.

Mar. Firft, fir, I pray,

192 What is your title?

Per. I am Pericles of Tyre.

But telle me now my drownd Queenes name, as ir
The reft you fayd, thou haft beene God-like perfi*
The heir of kingdomes, and another like
196 To Pericles thy father.

232 THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA.

Ma. Is it [Sir]

No more to be your daughter, then to fay,
My mothers name's Tkaifa ? *.

Thaifa was my mother, who did end
200 The minute I began.

Per. Now bleiling on thee, rife, thou art my child.
Give me freih garments : mine own Hellicanus,
Shee is not dead at Tharfus, as fhee mould have been
204 By fauage Cleon ; me mall tell thee all ;

When thou malt kneele, and juftifie in knowledge,
She is thy verie Princes. Who is this ?

Hel. Sir, 'tis the gouernor of Metaline,
208 Who hearing of your melancholic state,
Did come to fee you.

Per. I embrace you [Sir.]

Giue me my robes : I am wilde in my beholding.
Oh heauens bleffe my girle. But hark : what Muficke.
212 Tell Hellicanus , my Marina, tell him

Ore point by point, for yet he feems to doubt,
How fure you are my daughter. But what mulick ?
Hel. My Lord, I he a re none.
Per. None ?

216 The muficke of the fphears. Lift my Marina.

Lyf. It is not good to crofle him. Giue him way.
Per. Rar'ft founds, do ye not heare ?
Lyf. My Lord, I hear.

Per. Moft heauenly muficke. It nips me vnto liftning,
220 And [a] thicke flumber hangs vpon mine eyes.
[So]. Let me reft.

Lyf. A pillow for his head.

So. Leaue him all. Well my companion friends,
If this but anfwere to my juft belieef,
224 He well remember you.

Diana.

Dia. My Temple ftands in Ephefus ; hie thee thither,
And doe vppon mine Altar sacrifice.

SO. 7, 8.] THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. 233

'

There, when my maiden priefls are met together,
228 Before the people all,

Reueale how thou at lea didfl loofe thy wife.

To mourne thy crofles, with thy daughters, call,

And giue them repetition to the life.
232 Performe my bidding, or thou liu'ft in woe :

Doo't, and [be] happie by my filuer bow :

Awake and tell thy dreame.

Per. Celeftial Dian, GoddefTe Argentine,
236 I will obey thee. Hellicanus.

Hell. Sir.

Per. My purpofe was for Tharfus, there to llrike

The inhofpitable Cleon, but I am

For other feruice firft. Toward Ephefus
240 Turne oure blowne fay Is. Eftfoones He tell thee why.

Shall we refrefh us, fir, vpon your more,

And giue you golde for fuch prouifidn

As our intents will neede ?
244 Lyf. Sir,

With all my heart, and when you come aihore,

I haue another fuit.

Per. You mall preuaile,

Were it to wooe my daughter, for it feemes
248 You haue been noble towards her.

Come, my Marina.

Lyf. Sir, lend me your arme. Exeunt.

[Scene 8.]
Enter Pericles, Lyjimachus, Hellicanus, Marina, and others.

Per. Haile Dian. To performe thy juft command,
I here confefle my felfe the King. of Tyre.
Who, frighted from my count'rey, did wed
4 The faire Thai/a at Pentapolis,
At Sea in childbed died me, but brought forth
A Mayd child called Marina ; whom, O goddefie,

234 THE BlttTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. [»C. 8.

Wears yet thy liluer liuerey j Ihee at Tharfus
8 Was nurft with Cleon, who at fourteene yeares
He fought to murder, but her better ftars
Brought her to Meteline, gainft whofe more
Ryding, her fortunes brought the mayde aboord vs,
12 Where by her owne moft clere remembrance, Ihee
Made knowne her felfe my daughter.

Th. Voyce and fauour :

You are, you are, O royall Pericles.

Per. What meanes the nun? Ihee dies. Helpe gent'men.

Ceri. Noble Sir,

16 If you haue tolde Dianas Altar true,
This is your wife.

Per. Reuerent appearer, no.

I threwe her o'er-board with thefe verie armes.

Ce. Upon this Coafl, I warr'nt you.

Pe. Tis moft certaine.

20 Cer. Looke to the Ladle; O fhee's but ouerjoy'd.
Earlie in bluftering morne, this Ladie was
Throwne [up] upon this more. I oped the Coffin,
Found there rich Jewells, recouered her, and plac'fte her
24 Heere in Dianas Temple.

Per. May we fee them ?

Cer. Great fir, they lhal be brought you to my houfe,
Whither I inuite you. Look,
Thaifa is recouer'd.

Th. O let me looke :

28 If hee be none of mine, my fan&itie

Will to my fenfe bende no licentious eare,
But curbe it fpight of feeing : O my Lord,
Are you not Pericles ? like him you fpake,
32 Like him you are : did you not name a tempett,
A birth, and death ?

Per. The voyce of dead Thaifa.

Th. That Thaifam I, fuppofed dead and drownd.

Per. Immortal Dion.

SO. 8.] THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF MARINA. 235

Thai. Now I knowe you better ;

36 When wee with teares parted Pentapolis,
The king my father gaue you fuch a ring.

Per. This, this, no more, you gods : your prefent kindenes
Makes my paft miferies fports j you mall doe well,
40 That on the touching of her lips I may

Melt, and no more be feene. O come, be buried
A fecond time within thefe armes.

Ma. My heart

Leaps to be gone into my mothers bofome.
44 Per. Looke who kneels here, flefh of thy fleih, Thaifa,
Thy burden at the fea, and call'd Marina,
For me was yeelded there.

Th. Bleft, and mine owne.

Hell. Hayle Madame, and my Queene.
Th. I knowe you not.

48 Per. You haue heard mee fay when I did flie from Tyre,
1 left behind an ancient fubilitute.
Can you remember what I call'd the man ?
I haue nam'de him oft.

Th. 'Twas Hellicanus then.

52 Per. Still confirmation.

Embrace him deere Thaifa, this is he j
Now doe I long to heare how you were found ;
How poffiblie preferued ; and who to thanke
56 (Befides the gods) for this great miracle.

Th. Lord Cerimon, my Lord ; this [is thej man
Through whom the Gods haue fhowne their power, that can
From firft to laft refolue you.

Per. Reuerent lyr -,

60 The gods can haue no mortall officer

More like a god then you. Will you deliuer
How this dead Queen re-liues ?

Cer. I will, my Lord.

Befeech you firft goe with mee to my houfe,
64 Where {hall be fhowne you all was found with her;

236 THE BIRTH AND LIFE OP MARINA. [sC. 8.

How fhee came plac'fte heere in Dianas Temple j

No needfull thing omitted.

Per. Pure Dian, I blefle thee for thy vifion ; and
68 Will offer night oblations to thee.

Thatfa,

This Prince, the faire betrothed of your daughter,

Shall marrie her at Pentapolis. And now
72 This ornament,

Makes mee look difmall, will I clip to forme ;

And what this fourteene years no razor touch't,

To grace thy marridge day, He beautifie.
76 Th. Lord Cerimon hath letters of good credit, Sir,

My father's dead.

Per. Heauens make a Starre of him,

Yet there, my Queen,

Wee'le celebrate their Nuptialls, and our felues
80 Will in that kingdome fpend our following daies ;

Our fonne and daughter mail in Tyrus raigne.
Lord Cer'nnon, wee doe our longing flay
To heare the reft vntolde. Sir, lead's the way.

Exeuent omnes.

237

THE

ACTORS

NAME S .

Pericles Prince of Tyre.
Hellicanus, a Lord of Tyre.
Cleon Governor o/'Tharius.
Dionifia wife to Cleon.
Thaifa daughter to Symonides.
Marina daughter to Pericles and

Thaifa.

Lychorida Narfe to Marina.
Lyfimachus Governor ofMetaYme.

Cerimon a Lord of Ephefus.
Philoten daughter to Cleon.
Leonine a Murther-er, fervant to

Dioni/ia.
Diana, a goddefs appearing to

Pericles. (?)
Lords &c.
Saylors.
Py rates.

FINIS.

238

NOTES ON MARINA.

I HAVE to premise that I am not responsible for the numbering of
the lines by fours, nor for the use of the incorrect and systemless
old spelling in this edition.1 I agree with the Cambridge editors 011
both points : in fact, the more work I do myself, the more I feel the
soundness of their judgment. I shall here merely give a list of the
principal readings I have adopted from the commentators, and occa
sionally a defence of such as are original on my own part.
Sc. i. line 1. Thou for the. — Eowe.

4. re-called. — Eleay. Evidently necessary for metre

and sense.

7. Thou stormest for then storm. — Dyce.
11. midwife for my Wife. — Malone.
26. vie for use. — Singer, after Mason.
41. fresh-new for fresh new. — Malone.
49. That is for That's. — S. Walker.
51. custom for Eastern. — Bos well.
58. the oaze for oare. — Malone, after Steevens.
60. And e'er-remaining for the ayre remaining. — Fleay.
I prefer this to aye-remaining, following the
sound rather than the spelling, as always in this
play. Also I do not find compounds of aye in
Shakspere; but I do find ever-burning, ever-
esteemed, ever-fast, ever-gentle, ever-preserved, ever-
running, &c.
Sc. ii. line 10. [Sir]. — Steevens.

1 As people almost always count lines by twos, the four-numbering was
adopted by the Early English Text Society from the first, and has been found
so convenient, that it was orderd here. The retention of the old spelling was
made a fundamental point in the N. Sh. Soc.'s Prospectus, because moderniza
tion of spelling falsifies the history of the forms and sounds of the English
Language. The Society's editions are meant to be first critical, and secondly
popular, if people will accept them ; if not, so be it. — F. J. FUBNIVALL.

NOTES ON MARINA. 239

21. It is for 'tis. — Malone.

34. [7].— Malone.

38. treasure for pleasure. — Steevens.

45. time shall ne'er decay. — Staunton.

46. what is for what's. — Steevens.

47. up on for up upon. — Malone.
52. It is for 'tis. — Malone.

54. bittum'd for bottomed. — Malone, confirmed by the
novel.

59. what have we for what's. — Fleay. For the metre's
sake such a conjecture would not be admissible
in a less corrupt play ; but the text in this one
necessitates much surgery with a firm hand.

62. too. Apollo for to Apollo. — Malone.

63. /' th' for in the. — Steevens.
83. [the].— Fleay. Very doubtful.
86. Viall for Violl— Malone.

89. The conjecture of Malone after Steevens, Nature
awakes. ' A warmth breathes out of her, is very
plausible, though I have not ventured to disturb
the text.

105. [on]. — Fleay. Sense and metre require this word.
Sc. iii. line 5. shafts for shakes. — Steevens.

6. [have]. — Steevens.

7. ivandringly for wondringly. — Steevens. I doubt its

necessity.

29. unsisser'd hair for unsister'd heir. — Steevens. Con

firmed by Wilkins' novel.

30. ill for will. — Singer, after Malone.

Sc. iv. line 13. Transposed from Where you may abide till your
date expire. This kind of corruption is much
more frequent than is generally supposed.
16. And that is for that's. — Fleay. I cannot believe in a
four-accent line, in a rhyming couplet of this kind,
^c. v. line 5. love i' thy for thy love. — Knight.
13. [robed].— Fleay.

TRANSACTIONS. 16

240 NOTES ON MARINA.

26. [go you on the leach]. — Fleay. Something is wanted
as antecedent to it, and to explain there. These
words are, I think, nearly, if not quite right.

29. [L.]. — Fleay, for metre.

31. Come omitted. — Fleay. Metre and sense require
this,

48. [you]. — Fleay. Pray, pray you, I pray you, are
continually confused in the old copies.

53. [and] [the]. — Fleay. A very corrupt passage.

68. ? now for now ? — Malone.

76. \lier\. — Fleay. Confirmed by the novel.
Sc. vi. line 12. fact for face. — Singer.

17. pious for impious. — Mason, confirmed by Wilkins'
novel.

27. prime for prince. — Dyce.

28. Sources for courses. — Dyce.

30. [now].— S. Walker.

31. distaine for disdain. — Singer, after Steevens.
Sc. vii. line 31. night for ivight. — Malone.

39. deafend for defended. — Malone.

42. [ivith] [&] .—Malone.

44. [s]. — Malone.

48. Transposed. — Fleay.

51. gods for god. — Dyce, after S. Walker.

58. presence for present. — Malone.

62. bounty for beauty. — Malone, after Steevens.

64. feat for fate. — Steevens, after Percy.

68. recure for recouerie. — S. Walker.

86. go omitted. — Fleay. It spoils sense and metre alike.

92. you are — countrywoman — shores for y1 are — country-

wo men — shews. — Malone .
108. [to].— Fleay.
111. Palace for Pallas.— Malone.
116. say for stay. — Malone.

122. [justly] from line 78. — Fleay. Necessary for metre
and improves sense.

NOTES ON MARINA. 241

130. [them].— Malone.
137. [Sir].— Fleay.

144. [No]. — Steevens : but I feel strongly inclined to read
So ! Motion ! Pericles holding the hand of
Marina and feeling for her pulse.
155. [do].—- Fleay.
175. here is, for here9 8. — Malone.
196. [Sir].— Fleay.
209. [Sir].— Steevens.
220. [a] [So].— Fleay.

225. I have let Diana's speech stand ; but I regard it as
no more Shakspere's work than the vision in
Cymbeline.

231. life for like.— Malone.
233. |>].— Malone.
246. suit for sleight. — Malone.
249. Transposed. — Fleay.
Sc. viii. line 4. Transposed. — Malone.

15. nun for mum. — Collier: confirmed by Wilkins'

novel.

22. [up].— Fleay, from Sc. ii. 1. 47.
34. Thais for Thaisa.—Fle&y.
57. [is the].—S. Walker.
65. Diana's for the. — Fleay, from line 24.
70. fair-betrothed with hyphen. — Malone.

Any small alterations, such as I've for / have, or the converse,
inserted on my own responsibility, I have not thought it needful to
notice, as this edition is not critical : and I am unwilling to make
this list longer than is absolutely necessary. I am also responsible
for the arrangement of the lines throughout : which differs from all
other editions largely.

F. G. FLEAY.

242

DISCUSSION ON FOURTH PAPER. TIMON OF ATHENS.

May 8, 1874.

MR FuRtfiVALL : — To me this paper has been more satisfactory
than any former one of Mr Fleay's ; and for this reason : that it is
drawn up on the model of Mr Spedding's examination of Shakspere's
Henry VIII., which I have more than once urgd on Mr Fleay as
the pattern to follow, and which was really and truly in 1850 the
pioneer of the work that we have now, twenty-four years after, begun
to do ; that is to say, the Paper first criticises the play upon aesthetic
grounds, and then verifies the results by metrical tests. It seems to
me that when the question is the broad one of distinguishing between
the genuine and spurious work in a play, even a novice had better use
first such taste or critical power as he may have, and then seek the
aid of metrical tests in confirmation of his results ; whereas, in the
narrower and more delicate question of settling the succession of
Shakspere's genuine plays, the weak-kneed brother who has not had
the training to enable him to rely on his own judgment as to minute
differences of style, may well first get help from metrical tests, and
then, by means of them, step up to higher criticism. A Tennyson,
a Spedding, has no need of the aids that some of us beginners find
most valuable. Further, as to the distinction of genuine and spurious
in a play, there are scenes to which metrical tests do not apply, prose
ones, like Act III. sc. vi., on which Mr Fleay has been good enough
to adopt my opinion ; and there are scenes whose genuineness is so
clear that you don't care twopence what metrical tests say for or
against it. Take, for instance, the first part of Act IV. sc. ii., which in
Mr Fleay's first proof he had, from not having re-considerd it, markt
spurious. When I came on such passages as there are in this scene :

. . . . * and his poor selfe,
A dedicated Beggar to the Ayre,
With his disease of all shunn'd pouerty,
Walkes like contempt alone.'
and then,

. . . ' leak'd is our Barke,
And we poore Mates stand on the dying Decke,
Hearing the Surges threat : '

(p. 90 Booth, col. 1, p. 755 Globe), I felt of course that Shakspere must
have written them. (I stopt with 1. 29, whence I felt another hand.)
And when I referred the question to Mr Tennyson, he said, " I have
no doubt that, in spite of all the [metrical tests] in England, the
page you speak of is Shakspere." On my calling Mr Fleay's atten
tion to the scene, he at once admitted its genuineness and his over
sight. This, then, shows that metrical tests must, in such questions,
come second, not first. Heads must judge ; then fingers may count.

MAY 8. DISCUSSION ON TIMON. SHAKSPERE WROTE THE SERVANTS* BIT. 243

It seems to me that there are only four points doubtful in Mr Fleay's
arrangement of the play. First, Act I. sc. i., where Apemantus comes
in, and Timon says ' Looke who comes heere. Will you be chid 1 '
This looks as if Shakspere intended that there should be some consider
able chiding after it. But according to Mr Fleay's analysis, there are
in fact only four lines of Apemantus's chiding. If none of the rest of
the scolding is Shakspere's, he must have meant to expand the scene
afterwards. Secondly, in Act II. sc. ii., where the servants are brought
in. When Timon wants to borrow money, he calls ' Within there !
Flaminius 1 ! Servilius ! ' and Mr Fleay thinks that the prose follow
ing after ' severally ' is not Shakspere's. "The /Servants. My lord 1
my lord ] Timon. I will dispatch you seuerally : You to Lord
Lucius ; to Lord Lucullus you : I hunted with his Honor to-day " :
then to a third servant, "you to Sempronius" : and then " commend me
to their loues, and — I am proud — say that my occasions haue found
time to vse 'em toward a supply of money : let the request be fifty
Talents," and so on. Now Mr Fleay believes that Lucius, Lucullus, and
Sempronius are put in by an alterer. I altogether doubt this. He
also thinks that Timon's next speech ' Go you, sir, to the Senators '
is said to one of the servants ; who went ; and ' Go [you] to Ven-
tiddius ' is said to the other servant. But I cannot accept this, be
cause I believe that ' Go you to the Senators ' is said to the Steward.
For you will notice that the Steward, in answer to this request, says
that he has already askt the Senators ; and he gives Timon their an
swer, that they will not lend him the money. Timon, however, does
not get angry about their refusal; he merely explains it and ex
cuses it :

. . . . * These old Fellowes
Haue their ingratitude in them Hereditary :
Their blood is cak'd, 'tis cold, it seldome flowes.'

Thus the refusal of these old curmudgeons does not affect Timon,
does not anger him at all. It is his own personal friends that he
relies on, and whose refusal he thinks impossible. Again, if Shak
spere only sent to the Senators and to Ventidius, he would have left,
as the cause of the entire and terrible change in Timon's nature, y
nothing but the refusal of one false friend, Ventidius ; and this, when
the refusal is not given in the play, except by reference. I cannot
believe that Shakspere would make the ingratitude of one man the
sole cause of Timon's entire change of character. This would not
be motive enough : we must have refusal and ingratitude from
more friends than one ; and I therefore believe that Shakspere wrote
those few prose words ordering the servants to go to Lucius and
Lucullus (and possibly to Sempronius), as well as the Steward to go,
first to the Senators, and then — that having been already tried — to
Ventidius. It is quite possible that the expander of the play put in

1 Flaulus in the Folio, p. 84 Booth, last line.

244 MAY 8. DISCUSSION ON TIMON. THE SPURIOUS LINES IN ACT V.

the sentence 'You to Sempronius1 (the third friend)/ for Shak-
spere has not introducd a third servant by name. But this is not
certain, as the direction of the Folio is * Enter three Servants ', and
a fourth false friend, and a fourth refusal, help to strengthen the
motive for Timon's change of nature.

It is rather curious that the enlarger of the play did not take up

this most striking instance of Ventidius — who was more bound to

imon than Lucius and Lucullus — and give the scene of his being

askt for the money ; but perhaps he found it was too hard for him

to write. Shakspere must surely have meant to do it.

With regard to Mr Fleay's argument, that Lords Lucius and
Lucullus are put in here by the alterer because he had introducd
them in a former part of the play, I should turn it round, and say,
that the alterer, having found Lucius and Lucullus mentiond here,
took the hint of giving them a scene to themselves, or bringing them
into a scene, earlier than this mention of them by Shakspere.

3. As to Act IV. sc. iii., lines 399 to 412, 453 to 463, at the
beginning and end of the Banditti's talk, that ' slender ort of his
remainder ' looks Shaksperean, but the rest is of little worth. The
4th piece which has been suggested to be Shakspere's, particularly
on account of its effectiveness, is Act IY. sc. iii., lines 464 — 563, that
last interview of Timon with the Steward, where the steward proves
himself honest still, and Timon rewards him. This is thought by
some to be Shakspere's ; but it seems to me that Mr Fleay is right in
cutting it out, because, though the passage is from its nature finer
than most of the alterer's work, yet the metre is irregular, and I
doubt the lines being Shakspere's. Mr Fleay's argument also has force
with me, that after Timon had found one good man to stick to him
still, one true and faithful friend, he could not have turnd the mis
anthrope he was. He must have kept the man with him, and not
turned him off, like2 he did Alcibiades and the other people. Against
one of Mr Fleay's emendations, that in IV. iii. 449,

' All that you meete are Theeues : to Athens go,
Breake open shoppes [theeues] ; nothing can you steale.' . .
I have protested with all my might, tho' hitherto in vain, as I have
also against another, IV. iii. 37,

. . . ' This is it [yea]

That makes the wappen'd Widdow wo againe.'

A light word like for is wanted for theeues ; and this for yea. I
hope to see these ultimately adopted.

4. As to the epitaphs, to which Dr Brinsley Nicholson has calld

1 Severally, though used of more than two : ' all you peers of Greece :
severally entreat him' (T>\ and Cress. IV. i. 274), is used of two in Julius
Ccesar, III. ii. 10, if it refers to Brutus and Cassius's speaking, and not to their
reasons rendered.

2 For like as a conjunction, see Pedicles II. iv. 36, ' Like goodty buildings
. . soon fall to ruin ', in the non- Shakspere part of the play.

MAY 8. DISCUSSION ON TIMON. SHAKSPERE'S PLAY ENLARGED. 245

my attention, no one can fail to see that the two given are contra
dictory. If any editor believes that Shakspere wrote 'em both, he
should print only one (the second) in the text, and the other in the
Notes.

5. There is another point to be noticd, namely, that the talk
of Lucullus is, I think, imitated from Justice Shallow, 2 Hen. IV.
III. ii. That ' And how does that Honourable, Com pleate, free-hearted
Gentleman of Athens, thy very bountifull good Lord and Mayster '
(Act III. sc. i., p. 85, Booth), and his talk afterwards, lines 22 — 31,
* La, la, la, la ! " Nothing doubting," sayes hee 1 Alas, good Lord ! A
Noble Gentleman 'tis, if he would not keep so good a house. Many
a time and often I ha' din'd with him, and told him on't, and come
again to supper to him, of purpose to haue him spend less, and yet
he wold embrace no counsell, take no warning by my comming.
Every man has his fault, and honesty is his : I ha' told him on't, but
I could nere get him from't ' seems to me suggested by Shallow.

6. With regard to the theory of the composition of the play, I ^
have no doubt myself that Shakspere had the play by him unfinisht,
and that either before or after his death, the unfinisht sheets were
given to another man to complete ; because the far larger part of
the play is Shakspere's, and I think it is quite impossible that he
should have left in it the things he has, if he had been the alterer of
another man's work. When he was young, he no doubt did touch

up other men's plays, as we have seen in the Taming of the Shrew,
and shall no doubt see when Henry VI. and Richard III. come to be
discusst ; but after the examples that we have had of his late work
in Henry VIII., The Two Noble Kinsmen, and Pericles, where in
each case the design of the play is, as in Timon, Shakspere's, we
may fairly conclude that it is not he who there alters other men's
works, but other men who finish and fill up his. My conviction is
extremely strong that this is the case with Timon too, notwithstand
ing the view of Charles Knight (printed at foot) and other critics.
When we print the play for the Society's series of Shakspere's Plays,
it will not be done in this present sketch form, in which you must
have the bother of referring to another edition to see at what points
passages are left out, and what these passages are ; but the enlarger's
part will be put in, in smaller type, so that every reader can judge
for himself at once whether any part of the small-type work is Shak
spere's ; and if he thinks it is, mark it accordingly. Shakspere's
part of the play cannot stand by itself as an independent whole.
You must have something in after the end of Act II., some scenes
with Lucius, Lucullus, Alcibiades1, to complete the Play.

1 A friend, who differs from me as to the construction of the play, writes :
" The want of some better connexion between the fortunes of Timon and
Alcibiades is the great defect of the plot. If Shakspere had either designed
the play in the first instance, or completed his reconstruction of it, I am per
suaded that he would have involved them in some way in the beginning, and

246 MAY 8. DISCUSSION ON TIMON. CHARLES KNItiHl's OPINION.

Although Mr Spedding had already in 1850 calld attention to
the way in which metrical tests could aid in distinguishing the
spurious part of a play from the genuine, I am ashamd to say that,
when planning the Society's work, I overlookt very much that part
of the service that metrical tests could be to us, and I am grate
ful to Mr Fleay for having brought it forward again. No doubt it is
a more important work than settling the chronology of Shakspere's
plays. But I still desire to be shown whether metrical tests, or
some of them, do not occasionally, if not often, point out the same
differences between two genuine parts of a play, that they show be
tween a genuine and a spurious part. On this point we have as yet
no evidence.

FKOM C. KNIGHT'S INTRODUCTION TO TIMON OF
ATHENS.

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND SCENES OF ACT I.

" If, in the first scene, it would be very difficult to say with
cjertainty what is not Shakspere's, so in the second scene it appears
to us equally difficult to point out what is Shakspere's. We
believe that scarcely any part of this scene was written by him ;
we find ourselves at once amidst a different structure of verse
from the foregoing. ... In the first scene we do not find a single
rhyming couplet ; in the second scene their recurrence is more
frequent than in any of Shakspere's plays, even the earliest. This
scene alone gives sixteen examples of this form of verse ; which, in
combination with prose or blank verse, had been almost entirely
rejected by the maturer Shakspere, except to render emphatic the
close of a scene. In the instance before us we find the couplet intro
duced in the most arbitrary and inartificial manner — in itself neither
impressive nor harmonious. But the contrast between the second
scene and the first is equally remarkable in the poverty of the
thought, and the absence of poetical imagery."

" It will be sufficient, we think, to put in opposition the Cynic

given us an interest in Alcibiades, which we want. The ' indirect revenge
through Alcibiades ' is a very weak incident for a climax, and is made still
weaker by the omission of the scene in the Senate. A weak scene ; but repre
senting a quarrel which explains the armed invasion, as far as Alcibiades is
concerned ; but then Timon has nothing to do with it. Nor have we had any
hint that Timon was a man of any political importance in Athens, or one to
whom the state was otherwise indebted than as some of the senators had fed
upon him. The revelation that he was a man whose single influence could
alter the fortune of the war is reserved for the last scene but one; and is cer
tainly a surprise. But there I agree with Coleridge that Shakspere ' preferred
expectation to surprise ; ' and I don't think this can possibly have been his
design. It may, however, have been part of some other man's play, which he
had partly, but not wholly, reconstructed. This was C. Knight's conjecture,
and all the evidence seems to me to favour it."

MAY 8. DISCUSSION ON T1MON. CHARLES KNIGHT'S OPINION. 247

of this scene and of a subsequent scene, to show the impossibility of
the character having been wholly minted from the same die."
[Compare Act i. Sc. 2 with iv. 3.]

" Let us try the Steward of the first act and the Steward of the
second act by the same test. We print the speech in the first
column as we find it in the original. With the exception of the
two rhyming couplets, it is difficult to say whether it is prose or
verse. .,It has been ' regulated ' into verse, as we shall show in our
foot-notes ; but no change can make it metrical : the feebleness of
the thought is the same under every disguise. On the other hand,
the harmony, the vigour, the poetical elevation of the second
passage, like the greater part of the fourth or fifth acts, effectually
prevent all substitution and transposition.

[Compare Act i. Sc. 2—" What will this come to 1 " down to " I
bleed inwardly for my Lord," — with Act ii. Sc. 2 — " If you suspect
my husbandry" down to "These flies are couch'd."]

"The scene between the Servants, the Fool, and the Cynic has
very little of his [Shakspere's] animation or his wit. But who
is the Fool's mistress ] Johnson saw the want of connexion
between this dialogue and what had preceded it : — ' I suspect some
scene to be lost,' &c

" We shall have occasion to notice this want of connexion in
other scenes of the play. In that before us ... the whole thing
wants the spirit of Shakspere."

"We venture to express a conviction that very little of the third
act is Shakspere's. The ingratitude of Lucullus in the first scene,
and of Lucius in the second, is amusingly displayed ; but there is
little power in the development of character, little discrimination.
The passionate invective of Flaminius is forcible ; but the force is
not exactly that of Shakspere. The dialogue between the strangers
at the end of the second scene is unmetrical enough in the original. . .
The third scene has the same incurable defects. It seems to us
perfectly impossible that Shakspere could have produced thoughts so
common-place, and verse so unmusical, as we find in the speech of
Sempronius."

" Of the fifth scene we venture to say most distinctly that it
is not Shakspere's. Independently of the internal evidence of
thought and style (which we shall come to presently), the scene of
the banishment of Alcibiades and the concluding scene of his return
to Athens, appear to belong to a drama of which the story of this
brave and profligate Athenian formed a much more important feature
than in the present play. ..."

" The scene before us, and the concluding scene of the fifth act,
present, we think, nearly every characteristic by which the early
contemporaries of Shakspere are to be distinguished from him ; and
the negation, in the same degree, of all these qualities which render
him so immeasurably superior to every other dramatic poet."

248 MAY 8. DISCUSSION ON TIMON. C. KNIGHT. OLD SPELLING.

" The scene between Alcibiades and the senate consists of about
120 lines. Of these lines 26 form rhyming couplets. This of itself
is enough to make us look suspiciously upon the scene, when pre
sented as the work of Shakspere. Could the poet have proposed
any object to himself by this extraordinary departure from his usual
principle of versification ... V &c., &c. " Is not the perpetual and
offensive recurrence of the couplet an evidence that this and other
scenes of the play were of the same school as ' the History of K.
Lear and his three daughters ' upon which Shakspere founded his
own Lear ? . . . "

" The whole of the senate scene in Timon is singularly unme-
trical ; but wherever the verse becomes regular it is certainly not the
.metre of Shakspere. Mark the pause, for example, that occurs at
the end of every line of the first speech. . . . But in addition to
the structure of the verse, the character of the thought is essentially
different from that of the true Shaksperian drama. Where is our
poet's imagery ? "

P.S. I am sorry to see from a late note of Mr Fleay's, p. 238,
that he has alterd his opinion of 8 months ago as to the duty and
advisability of printing Shakspere's Plays in spelling of his time, or
as near that as possible. Mr Fleay's letter in the Daily News of
Jan. 8 said : —

" As one of the earliest introducers of systematic teaching in English litera
ture in our schools, [I] beg to thank Mr Furnivall for originating a society
which will give us, for the first time, the means of placing in our pupils' hands
the text of Shakspere in its original spelling, as far as it can be ascertained.
The want of such texts has been hitherto a serious hindrance to an intelligent
criticism of our greatest poet in educational work."

That * old spelling ' is the right thing for ' old plays ' needs no proof
to any one who is a member of the Philological or Early English Text
Society, to any one who knows that the forms and sounds of words
have a history, and that to falsify the evidences of that history, is a
crime against linguistic honesty. But those editors of old plays who,
because they find it a bore to hunt out the old spelling — and perhaps
choose one of three old forms when found — of their emendation-
words, seek to change the spelling of the whole play into that of
modern English, I ask to study Mr A. J. Ellis's sections on Shakspere,
in his History of Early English Pronunciation, and then say how we
can judge of his statements unless we have our Society books of the
16th and 17th centuries in old spelling, and get our eyes thoroughly
into it ] For instance, if a phonetician assures you that the Eliza
bethan pronunciation of " said " was with the German ai, our ' aye ! '
how can you answer him by producing " sed " from Elizabethan
books, unless your Society gives you this spelling, and not some
modernizer's " said " ? So, <. f the I, said to be pronounct in " should"
though the word is often printed " shud," &c. &c. For books of those

MAY 8. DISCUSSION ON TIMON. DR NICHOLSON'S OPINION. 249

publishers who don't care one farthing for the history of English, and
want only large sales, modernizd spelling may well be adopted. Even
for readers whose heads are so thick that words carrying ideas can't
get into said heads unless the words have their ordinary shape, mod
ernization is justifiable. But The New Shakspere Society is not pub
lishing for profit only, nor are its members learning their ABC. To
them, modernization is falsification ; and they'll have none of it.

DR B. NICHOLSON : — One of the three questions raised in the
Paper may, I suppose, be considered as settled — that, namely, of
the double authorship. So in the main the second, the parts
attributable to Shakspere. But as to the third, I would wish to set
forth some of the evidence which appears to me to render it pro
bable that Shakspere overwrote an older play, rather than that his
unfinished work was added to. In Act i. sc. 1, it can hardly be
supposed that Shakspere, who seldom blotted, left this trifling bit
unfinished. If he did not, then in a most ceremonious and puncti
lious age (Shakspere's), two guests do not follow so great a one as
Timon when he invites them with " Let's in," and they stand out
merely for one to say to the other, " Come, let's in ; " after which,
and after a few words that they are evidently and clumsily left on
the stage to . say, the other repeats the " Shall we in 1 " Take the
scene as it stands, all follow Timon, and the needy poet and painter
having praised their patron, these lords enter as coming to the feast,
dally a little with Apemantus, and then naturally, by contrast and
sight of the house, tell us that the nobles equally praise Timon. Is
not this less incongruous and more natural, and does it not tend to
show that Shakspere overwrote an older play 1 Mr Fleay seems to
think that what he would call additions, violate a stage direction ;
but that direction is, that Apemantus comes dropping after [to the
banquet], not that he goes dropping out after all.

The banquet scene (I. 1) is said not to advance the action.
True ; but like the conversation between Macbeth and Lady Mac
beth, and Macbeth's soliloquy, it developes character ; and some such
scene is essential. In a play, characters must not only be described,
as in a poem or novel, but shown. Here it is required to develope,
first, the character of Timon, who is to be shown as somewhat weakly
falling into a violent and maddened misanthropy, because when rich
he was weakly lavish, loved to be courted, and to flatter himself
and all around him. Secondly, it is required to show the universal
benefits received by " the States," (the Senate, as representing
Athens), the lords, and Ventidius, and their adulation of Timon.
Thirdly, to bring out at once the character of Apemantus, who, as a
cynic by nature, and one who rails and lets the world go by, is
intended to contrast with and bring out the different character of
Timon and his misanthropy. Hence his frequent appearance in the

250 DISCUSSION. MAY 8. SHAKSPERE OVERWROTE AN OLD TIMON.

earlier scenes, where also a biting jester was required ; and I cannot
but think I hear some at least of Shakspere's prose in the scene from
the entrance of Apemantus to the entrance of Alcibiades. So I
think the grace is by Shakspere. If so, it is most probable he had
had a banquet scene before him ; and even if he did not write the
grace, still the dramatic necessity of some such scene renders it more
probable that the scene was there. Of course it may be said that
Shakspere may have left that for a future that never came, but we
must beware of a supposition which refutes in advance all objection ;
and such an omission is not agreeable to what has been handed down
of his working, or what we learn from a study of his plays. More
over, we must then admit that the second writer was no such botcher
as he is obliged to be represented elsewhere. The so-called ' germs '
seem to me to mean that there are references to what is developed
in other parts of the play, and to be equally applicable to both
theories. If there was a banquet, it is a matter of necessity that
there should be such a reference to it as in I. i. 290 ; and, as I said,
on another point, he must have been a careful developer who added
so necessary a scene, or developed it from what without a banquet-
scene would have been so casual a phrase.

In a part of Act ii. sc. 2, Timon, having said, " See the creditors'
servants well entertained," the steward says, " Draw near," intending
of course, high officer as he is, to hand them over to some one in the
buttery, while he makes his statement to Timon. When both re-enter,
he tells them, they being still there, to " walk near," that is, "go
not too far off, yet leave us private." Now we cannot spare the
Shakspere lines that follow ; but no dramatist would give us the
weary accounts. It is to avoid this that the servants are made to
prefer amusement to eating. Doubtless this is too clumsy for Shak
spere ; but it does not prove an addition, or render such the more
probable supposition. "Rather, Shakspere's words which follow so
well on such an arrangement, tend to sbow that he accepted what went
before as sufficiently good to stand in a play which, judging by other
plays and poems, must have been popular about 1598, the date when
satire and strong-spiced drama were in vogue, and which he was
touching up for revival, and touching up in especial the strong
situations to a fitting force of expression. To my mind the Shak
spere parts show this much more than they show any plot.

In Act ii. sc. 2, Mr Furnivall has argued for the retention of the
prose bit, on the entrance of the servants. I add another consideration
— the amount — its requirement in one sum — the words "to the
States' best health" — the answer in a "joint and corporate voice " —
the distinction between senators and lords — and various passages in
V. 1, where the senators address Timon, all show that the thousand
talents had been lent to the State. A servant could not without a
gross breach of decorum have been sent to the senate, but his steward,
an Eleazar of Damascus — who had uncontrolled use of his signet —

DISCUSSION. MAY 8. SHAKSPERE OVERWROTE AN OLD T1MON. 251

could go, and had gone. The text agrees with this ; and as it also
shows that the steward was sent to Ventidius, the servants are unused,
unless you make Shakspere send them to lords Lucius and Lucullus.
If the prose bit be not Shakspere's, how can it be an addition 1

Act iv. sc. 2, so far at least as to the parting of the servants, is
not quite Shakspere's, but was certainly, I think, overwritten by
him ; there are lines wholly different from the rhythm of the second
author, but having the rhythm and style of Shakspere. In sc. 3 the
junction made by Mr Fleay approves itself less to me than those of
the original. As Apemantus did not care for money, his answer,
" Thou art the cap of all fools alive," seems inappropriate, whereas,
when Timon says he would rather be a beggar's dog than Apeman
tus, it means, "Thou never knew'st what was good for thee; in this
thou capp'st all, and I heed not thy fool's opinion." Not caring for
gold, and curiosity being the cause of his visit, it is the "sleeps" that
makes him ask him, — whose bed had been of roses — " Where liest o'
nights, Timon ]" The argument from "Yonder comes a poet and
painter," would prove, not only that the adder had not thought of what
he must have read in order to write up to the entrance of the banditti,
but that he made the blunder with full knowledge that he himself
was going to bring in the steward before the painter. Is it not far
more probable that the words were left in by an oversight when
Shakspere added to the play 1

As to the tomb-scene, there has been, I think, a continued and
great misapprehension. The tomb is on the tidal sands, the Saxon
mark of a despicable burial. Timon's cave is in the woods, where he
digs roots. This is shown by various passages and their imagery.
Speaking to the senators he says, not "hither," but

thither come
And let my grave-stone be thy oracle.

This also, and his soliloquy passage,

make thy epitaph
That death in me at others' lives may laugh,

show his fixed determination to declare his misanthropy after death.
Knowing his cell would be visited for gold, or out of curiosity, he
ensured the finding of the epitaph and the making known of his death
by affixing a notice in his cave, and further gratified his spleen by
this second expression of it. His intent is fulfilled. The soldier who
might have thought that the madman had wandered away, thus learns
Timon's death, and looking about, finds his tomb which otherwise he
could hardly have guessed to be his. Now, just as the notice was all
but necessary to make the action natural, so was it dramatically ne
cessary that the epitaph should only be read by Alcibiades, and
commented upon at the end of the play. Hence the soldier is
made, not unable to read, but unable to read "what's on the

MAY 8. SHAKSl'EKE UVERWIIOTE AN OLD TIMON.

tomb/' in characters unknown to him, the example before the writer
and audience not being a Greek custom, but that of Latin and Old
English characters on English tombs. If there be a difficulty
in this — and I see none — it is far less difficult than to suppose
that an adder writing up to Shakspere's epitaph, wrote an especial
one contradicting it, and also within two lines contradicted himself,
by making the soldier both read and unable to read. It is clumsy
that the messenger should have wax ready, and enough to take an
inscription ; but on the botcher-addition theory, this fault is Shak
spere's.1 Leaving other points, it seems to me, not only that this
theory is not proven, but that these and other considerations, and
the fact just stated by Mr Simpson that a Timon was, at the date of
the Satiromastix, in the possession of Shakspere's company, render
it more probable that Shakspere overwrote an old play with especial
reference to Burbadge's part.2

DISCUSSION ON PERICLES.

MR FURNIVALL : — I hope that the fact I am going to mention
will render all further discussion as to the Shakspere part of the
Pericles unnecessary. When I first saw Mr Tennyson last winter —
after many years' occasional correspondence — he askt me, during our
talk, whether I'd ever examind Pericles with any care. I had to
confess that I'd never read it, as some friends whom I considerd good
judges had told me it was very doubtful whether Shakspere wrote
any of it. Mr Tennyson answerd, ' Oh, that won't do. He wrote
all the part relating to the birth and recovery of Marina, and the

1 There are two incompatible epitaphs, but they occur in a Shakspere
passage in the last scene. " Seek not my name " and the tone of these two
lines are incompatible with, " Here lie I, Timon." Hence a second epitaph
has been substituted as an improvement, while both have, by an oversight,
been retained.

a I now add a tolerably decisive proof that Timon as we have it was an
acted play. In old plays the entrance directions are sometimes in advance of
the real entrances, having been thus placed in the theatre copy that the per
formers or bringers-in of stage-properties might be warned to be in readiness
to enter on their cue. In Act I. Sc. i. (folio) is Enter Apermantus opposite
" Well mocked," though he is only seen as in the distance by Timon after the
Merchant's next words, and does not enter till after " Hee'l spare none." So
in the banquet (Sc. ii. mod. eds.) there is — Sound Tucket. Enter the Maskers
[&c.] before Timon's — " What means that trump ? " — and, Enter Cupid with
the Maske of Ladies before Cupid's fore-running speech. There is doubtless a
little confusion in having two directions, perhaps due to the Cupid fore-runner,
and his speech being a Shakspere addition, but the argument remains the same,
for both directions are in advance, as the Lady Masquers do not enter till after
Timon's " They'r we[l]come all, let 'em haue kind admittance."

MAY 8. DISCUSSION ON PERICLES. 253

recovery of Thais. I settld that long ago. Come up-stairs, and
I'll read it to you.' Upstairs to the smoking-room in Seamore
Place we went ; and there I had the rare treat of hearing the poet
read in his deep voice — with an occasional triumphant ' Isn't that
Shakspere 1 What do you think of that 1 ' and a few comments —
the genuine part of Pericles. I need not tell you how I enjoyd the
reading, or how quick and sincere my conviction of the genuineness
of the part read was. But I stupidly forgot to write down the numbers
of the scenes. However, when the proof of Mr Fleay's print of ' The
Birth and Life of Marina ' came, its first words, ' Thou God of this
great vast ', brought the whole thing back to me, and I recognizd in
its pages the same scenes that Mr Tennyson had read to me. But
afterwards, misled by some bad misprints in the proof of Scene VI.
of Mr Fleay's print, I fancid the scene could not be Shakspere's.
Dr Abbott, however, has corrected the misprints, and Mr Tennyson
has confirmd my original impression that Mr Fleay has printed only
those parts of the play that Mr Tennyson held, and holds, genuine.1
The independent confirmation of the poet-critic's result by the
metrical-test-worker's process is most satisfactory and interesting, —
following, as it does, like facts in the case of Henry VIII. and The
Two Noble Kinsmen, — and should give us confidence in the metrical
tests so used. We must all feel greatly indebted to Mr Fleay for his
excellent Paper, and print of the Play. Two remarks I have to add :
1. The play of Marina is not a complete whole : it wants passages
added, a. At the end of Scene i., to show the laying of Thais in the
' Chist ', and the casting of that into the sea (though this is not given
in the quarto editions of Pericles}. (3. At the beginning of Scene v., to
explain Dioniza's motive in swearing Leonine to murder Marina.
This act of hers is an entire surprise in Scene v., and its motive is
not explained till Scene vi. In the Quarto enlargd play the Gower
Chorus rightly tells the story wanted. 2. The emendation in
Pericles's speech to Marina, p. 230,

Per. But are you flesh and blood ?

Have you a working pulse, and are no Fairie 1
[No] motion 1 well, speake on ; where were you born 1

seems to me clearly wrong. Pericles doesn't ask ' Are you no motion 1 '
but '(Have you) motion?' If any alteration is needed, I'd rather
have * Have you ' than ' No '.

P.S. In my second term at Cambridge the late W. Sidney
Walker was, it seems, following Mr Tennyson in his opinion of
" Pericles." In Feb. 1843 Mr Walker wrote this, which was pub-
lisht in 1860 : — " Authorship of Pericles. This play was the work
of three hands. I am not able at present (Feb., 1843) to assign each

1 P.S. — Dr George MacDonald has since told me that he had made the
same division of the play for himself, though not so long ago as Mr Tennyson.

254 DISCUSSION. MAY 8. DR FARMER ON THE SHREW.

particular scene to its author ; but the truth of my position may be
tested by comparing the scenes at the court of Simonides with the
storm-scene, or that wherein Pericles recognizes his daughter (both
which latter are incontestably Shakespeare's) ; and again, both the
above with the dialogues in the brothel, — vigorous certainly, but not
Shakespearian, either in subject, or in the kind of power they display.
Perhaps Shakespeare retouched a great part of the play. The third
writer may have been, as I have heard conjectured, Dekker; but I
do not know Dekker's manner well enough to warrant me in giving
an opinion." — A Critical Examination of the Text of Shakespeare,
iii. 333.

In consequence of Mr Fleay's Postscript to his Shrew paper, I
add Dr Farmer's opinion on The Shrew: "We have hitherto sup
posed Shakespeare the Author of the Taming of the Shrew, but his
property in it is extremely disputable. I will give you my opinion,
and the reasons on which it is founded. I suppose then the present
play not originally the work of Shakespeare, but restored by him to
the Stage, with the whole Induction of the Tinker ; and some other
occasional improvements ; especially in the Character of Petruchio.
It is very obvious that the Induction and the Play were either the
work of different hands, or written at a great interval of time. The
former is in our author's best manner, and a great part of the latter
in his worst, or even below it. Dr Warburton declares it to be
certainly spurious ; and without doubt, supposing it to have been
written by Shakespeare, it must have been one of his earliest pro
ductions. Yet it is not mentioned in the list of his works by Meres
in 1598." — Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare, 3rd ed. 1789,
p. 66.

253

Y. ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH.

BY J. W. HALES, ESQ., M.A.
(Read at the Fifth Meeting of the Society, held May 22, 1874.)

"I pray you remember the Porter." — ii. 3.

As is well known, the earliest extant copy of the play of Macbeth
is that of the Folio of 1G23. Perhaps the earliest allusion to the play
occurs, as Mr Halliwell points out, in the year 1607, in the l Puritan
(iv. 3) ; where the words " We'll ha' the ghost i' th' white sheet sit
at upper end o' th' table," seem distinctly to refer to the apparition
of Lanquo. So that Macbeth had been exhibited at least 16 years
before its publication in the first Folio. And it has been suspected
that in more than one part the play is not preserved in the Folio in
the exact shape in which it left the hand of its creator. Thus the
passage in the 3rd scene of the 4th act, where the touching for the
* King's evil ' is described, has been supposed to be an interpolation,
and it certainly has the air of being so. In the preface of tho
Clarendon press edition of the play, many other passages are
mentioned which the editors, rightly or wrongly, incline to believe
were written by Middleton. Amongst the passages that have been
doubted are the soliloquy of the Porter, and the short dialogue that
follows between the Porter and Macduff. And the doubts concern
ing it deserve all consideration, because they were supported, if not
originated, by the best Shaksperian critic this country has yet pro
duced. " The low soliloquy of the Porter," says Coleridge, "and his few
speeches afterwards, I believe to have been written for the mob by
some other hand, perhaps Avith Shakespeare's consent ; and, finding it
take, he, with the remaining ink of a pen otherwise employed, just

1 See Hazlitt's SJialtspere's Plays and Poems, vol. v. p. 293, ed. 1852. Hajs-
litt's note is: — "Dr Farmer thinks this was intended as a sneer at Macbeth."

. 17

256 MR HALES ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH.

interpolated the words, ' I'll devil-porter it no further : I had thought
to IH in some of all professions, that go the primrose way to the ever
lasting bonfire.' Of the rest not one sy liable has the ever-present being
of Shakespeare." — (Literary Remains, ii. 246-7.) Coleridge is not to
be followed implicitly, because he has in other Shaksperian matters
erred strangely;1 but yet this doom of his cannot be lightly disre
garded. It cannot be said, however, to have convinced the world.
Many editors do not even acknowledge that a doubt should exist.
Gcrvinus does go just so far. " Coleridge and Collier," he says, " are
in favour of this omission, as they consider his [the Porter's] solilo
quy to be the unauthorized interpolation of an actor. It may be so."
And then he proceeds, in fact, to show how it may not be so.

I propose in this paper to consider whether the Porter is not after all
a genuine offspring of Shakspere's art. It is possible to show beyond
controversy, that he is an integral part of the original play ; and
therefore we must conclude, if he is not the creation of Shakspere,
that the play was originally the fruit of a joint authorship, and not
merely amended by some reviser. But if, in addition to this, it can
be shown that his appearance is in accordance with the artistic sys
tem by which Shakspere worked, that it relieves the awful intensity I
of the action, and permits the spectator to draw breath, — further, that
he satisfies that law of contrast which rules, not unfrequently in a
manner that perplexes and astonishes, the undoubted compositions of
Shakspere — that his speech has a certain dramatic pertinence, and is ^
by no means an idle outflow of irrelevant buffoonery ; — if such theses
can be maintained, then certainly the Porter is the result of
Shakspere's direct dictation, if not his own manufacture. Lastly, if
his particular style and language prove to be Shaksperian, it must
surely be a confirmed hypersceptic that persists in believing that he
is not of the family of Shakspere, but begotten by some skilful mimic.
Certainly these are the five points which should be thoroughly con
sidered before any final verdict is pronounced. On each one of them

1 Thus, in 1802, he places " The London Prodigal " amongst Shakspere's
plays. The Merchant of Venice after Henry V, &c. ; in 1810, The Tempest in
the 2nd Period, Othdlo amongst the latest plays ; in 1819, The Tem.pest in the
same epoch with The Merchant of Venice, &c. See Literary Remains, ii.
86—91.

MR HALES ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH. 257

I shall try to offer a few suggestions. For the sake of clearness I
recapitulate them :

(i.) That a Porter's speech is an integral part of the play.

(ii.) That it is necessary as a relief to the surrounding horror,
(iii.) That it is necessary according to the law of contrast else
where obeyed,
(iv.) That the speech we have is dramatically relevant.

(v.) That its style and language are Shaksperian.

(i.) That a Porter's speech is an integral part of the play. This is
a very simple matter. No one will deny that the knocking scene is an
integral part of the play. In the whole Shaksperian theatre there
is perhaps no other instance where such an awful effect is produced
by so slight a means, as when, the deed of blood accomplished, in
the frightful silence that the presence of death under any circum
stances ever imposes on -all around it, when the nerves of Macbeth
are strained to the uttermost, and without any external provocation
he hears an unearthly voice crying " Sleep no more " — •

Still it cried, " Sleep no more " to all the house:
Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more ; Macbeth shall sleep no more — •

at this ghastly moment there is a knocking heard. The spiritual y
and the material seem merged ; and one half fancies that it is Con
science herself that has taken a bodily form, and is beating on the
gate, or that Vengeance has already arisen and is clamorous for its
victim.

" Whence is that knocking 1 " cries Macbeth.

" How is't with me, when every noise appals me ? "

It comes again, and his wife now hears it, and recognizes it as
made at the south entry. For her matter-of-fact nature it is intel:
ligible enough ; but even for her how terrible, and, as in due time
appears, how burnt in on the memory this first arrival of the outer
world, now that the old conditions of her life are all deranged and
convulsed.

258 MR HALES ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH.

I hear a knocking

At the South entry ; retire we to our chamber ;

A little water clears us of this deed ;

How easy is it then ! your constancy

Hath left you unattended. \Knocldng ivitldn~\

Hark ! more knocking.

Get on your night-gownj lest occasion call us,
And show us to be watchers. Be not lost
So poorly in your thoughts.
Macbeth. To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.

[Knocking within]
Wake Duncan with thy knocking ! I would thou couldst !

And then, as he leaves the stage, " Enter a Porter," the knocking
continuing with slight intermissions ; and at last, when the door is
opened, Macduff interrogates the opener as to his lying so late. And
when Macbeth appears, after whom he is at the moment inquiring,
he says,

" Our knocking has awaked him ; here he comes."

Later on in the play, when Lady Macbeth's overtasked physique
gives way under the pressure of vast and truceless anxieties, and
reason dethroned, we see something of the impressions which, in
spite of herself, have been stamped and branded upon her mind,
we learn how that knocking thrilled and pierced her too. " To bed,
to bed ! " she exclaims, in the awful scene of the delirium ; " there's
knocking at the gate ; come, come, come, give me your hand."

The knocking scene, then, is of no trivial importance.1 But with
the knocking the Porter is inseparably associated. If we retain it,
we must retain him. And if we retain him, he must surely make
a speech of some sort ; or are we to picture to ourselves a profoundly
dumb functionary 1 Are we to conceive him as crossing the stage,
thinking a great deal but saying nothing ? — nodding perhaps with
all the amazing volubility of Sheridan's Lord Burleigh, or brandish
ing his keys with a mysterious cunning, or perhaps rushing head-

1 See On the knocking at the gate in Macbeth, De Quincey's Works, xiii.
192-8, ed. 1863.

MR HALES ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH. 259

long to his post as if his life was at stake, but witli liis tongue
fast tied and bound ? There is probably no student of Shakspere
who is prepared to accept such a phenomenon. Clearly, then, the
Porter speaks, to whatever effect.

(ii.) That some speech of a lighter kind is necessary to relieve
the surrounding horror. In the scene that includes the enactment
of Duncan's murder, the latter part of which has already been dis
cussed and quoted, the intensity of the Tragedy reaches the highest
possible point of endurance. Such is the mighty power of the
dramatist, that we find ourselves transported into the midst of the
scenes he portrays. They are not images for us, but realities. We
verily see Macbeth pass into the King's chamber, and share his
frightful excitement. " The owls scream, and the crickets cry." And
we hear one " laugh in 's sleep," and one cry " Murder." And the
wild weird fancies that overcome him are vivid with us too, and the
air is filled with ominous visions and ghastly voices, and the shadows
of horror encompass us round as with a cloak. We reach the ne
plus ultra of dramatic terror. Nature can bear no more. We can
not breathe in so direful an atmosphere. The darkness is crushing
us like a weight. " Tearfulness and trembling are come upon us ; and
a horrible dread " threatens to " overwhelm us."

As between the sublime and the ridiculous, so between pleasure
and pain there is but one step. But the great artist never takes
this step. The pleasure he imparts is often strange and inexplicable,
and not to be defined ; but it is pleasure. When we speak of his
moving terror in us, we use the word in a modified sense. It is an
inferior and a coarser art that thrills with positive fear and aif right.
If the old story is true that the Furies of ^Eschylus were so1 dreadful

1 They might well be so if they answered to the Priestess' description of
them : —

7rp6a9tv 8e Tavdpog rovde Qavftatrr
ivdti yvvancwv Iv Qpovoiaiv r^itvoQ.
ovroi yvvaiKaQ aXXd Popyoj'a£ \€yw,
ovS' avTf ropydoifftv tiKaatii TVTTOIQ.
tioov Tror' -ijdij <bivi(»Q ytypa^jusvag
SHTTVOV 0fpouffrt£* aTrrtpof y* \iv\v ifttiv
avrai, pfXatvai 6' «£ TO TTO.V fiStXvKTQOTr
pkyKovat d' ov TrXdrojtri Qvaictfiaaiv'
vai dvff'piXi] \lf3a'

260 MR HALES ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH.

to see that women in his audience were thrown into fits and convul
sions, then the representation was not truly artistic, "but rude. Cer
tainly Shakspere does not ever so miscomprehend his craft. He
has the strength of a giant, but he does not use it as a giant. He
understands and he observes the proper limits within which his
power may be exercised. There was a certain profound humanity
in him which forbade all idle torturing of those whom his irresistible
fascination placed at his mercy. And so in his excitement of the
feelings he knew when to stay his hand, and he acted faithfully
according to his knowledge. He does not turn pleasure into pain by
an excessive prolongation of any state of extreme emotion.

!Now if ever in the plays of Shakspere some relaxation is needed
for the nerves tense and strained to the utmost ; if ever some respite
and repose are due to prevent the high mysterious delight which it
is the province of the artist to kindle within us, corrupting into a
morbid panic ; if ever, as we read or listen, one's heart threatens to sus
pend its beating, and a very palsy seems imminent, should the awful
suspense be protracted, it is so in the terrible scene now before us.
In Davenant's version of the play, in which all the vigour of the con
text is miserably weakened and diluted, no such imperious necessity
exists. But I submit that any one of imagination, who studies
this scene as we have it with all his power, who realizes it in all its
finished terribleness, and is keenly sensible of the darkness of it as
of a darkness that may be felt, will be truly thankful for a temporary
release and diversion.

Neque semper arcum

Tendit Apollo.

A monotony of horror cannot be sustained. In that appalling
night scene the very air seems poisoned ; and any disturbance of it

OVTS Trpbg Qtwv ayaX/xcrra
dtKaiog ovr' ig avOpwiruv artyag. K.T.\. — Ewm. 46 — 56.

' The appearance they have in ./Eschylus was more or less retained by the poets
of later times. ... On the stage, however, and in works of art, their fearful
appearance was greatly softened down,' &c. See art. "Eumenides " in Smith's
Diet, of Greek and Roman Uiog. and Myth., vol. ii.

MR HALES ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH. 2G1

is infinitely welcome. The sound of a fresh voice, after we have
listened so long to that guilty conference, is a very cordial. If
it would be going too far to say, with an alteration of the
poet's words, that

We must laugh or we must die,

one may yet fairly maintain that the terror must be drawn out no
further, or our sensibilities will, be either numbed and stupefied, or
roused into a wild fever of excitation.

That this view— that some relief is indispensable — is not an
idle conjecture, founded on an exaggerated estimate of the fearful-
ness of the murder scene, is curiously illustrated by the experience
of one who attempted to thoroughly study that scene apart from its
surroundings. Mrs Siddons, so studying it, found the horrors of it
completely overcome her. The following is the account she herself
gives of the result of such an isolation : —

" It was my custom to study my characters at night, when all the
domestic cares and business of the day were over. On the night
preceding that on which I was to appear in this part for the first
time, I shut myself up, as usual, when all the family were retired,
and commenced my study of Lady Macbeth. As the character is
very short, I thought I should soon accomplish it. Being then only
twenty years of age, I believed, as many others do believe, that little
more was necessary than to get the words into my head ; for the
necessity of discrimination, and the development of character, at that
time of my life had scarcely entered my imagination. But to pro
ceed. I went on with tolerable composure in the silence of the
night (a night I can never forget) till I came to the assassination
scene, when the horrors of the scene rose to a degree that made it
impossible for me to get farther. I snatched up my candle, and
hurried out of the room in a paroxysm of terror. My dress was of
silk, and the rustling of it, as I ascended the stairs to go to bed,
seemed to my panic-struck fancy like the movement of a spectre
pursuing me. At last I reached my chamber, where I found my
husband fast asleep. I clapt my candlestick down upon the table

262 MR HALES ON THE TORTER IN MACBETH.

without the power of putting the candle out ; and I threw myself 011
my bed, without daring to stay even to take off my clothes."1

(iii.) Some lighter speech is necessary according to the laic of con
trast elsewhere observed by Shakspere. Perhaps there is no character
istic of the Romantic drama more striking than the frequent or rather
the habitual, juxta-position of opposites. It delights in the meeting
of extremes. The Tragi-Comedy, or Comi-Tragedy, was a form of its
own peculiar invention. The Mask had its Antimask. This law of
contrast may seem at first sight identical with the law of relief just dis
cussed. But it is not so. It springs not from the practical restraints
of the drama in its demands upon human endurance, as does that law
of relief, but from far wider considerations. It springs from the grand
ambition of Teutonic art to embrace in its representation life in all
its length and breadth. This art is not content with a mere excerpt
from life, a mere fragment, a single side of life, as the phrase is. It
yearns to comprehend life in its totality. It would put its arms
round the whole world — a girdle around the entire earth. The
artist, if you think of him as a reaper going forth with his scythe,
will not be confined to this single acre or that. He must have free
scope, and he will gather his harvest everywhere. Of an audaciously
aspiring soul, he will not acknowledge the artificial barriers that are
reared around him. And as he gazes at life as a whole, he sees it
full of amazing contrasts, and the most fantastic paradoxes, and he
aims at portraying life, this oxymoron life, as the grammarians might
call it, so bitter-sweet, so teeming with strange reverses, so dull and so
bright, so low and so lofty, so mean, so noble. To the true humorist
these various colours of life are inextricably interwoven. He cares
nothing for the superficial distinctions that pass current around him.
For him there is a transcendent unity that binds all things together.
He does not trouble himself about the labels that are placed by con
ventional persons on the various departments of existence. He laughs
everywhere, and he cries everywhere. It is all infinitely sad, and
infinitely comic. Heraclitus and Democritus meet in him. As you
look at him you cannot say whether his eyes are filled with tears or

1 See Campbell's Life of Mrs Siddons, ed. 1839, p. 184. The passage may
also be found in Knight's Cabinet Edition of Shakspere, ix. 4.

MR HALES ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH. 2G3

with smiles. The beauty of summer and the bleakness of winter,
the gaiety of youth and the torpor of age, the gladness of life and
the dullness of death — these are omnipresent with him. And so
to him there is nothing shocking or abhorrent in the inter-proximities
of things apparently alien to each other. For him the very jaws of
death are capable of laughter.

And so in the Shaksperian drama we find strange neighbourhoods.
Jesters and jestings in the midst of that stupendous storm in
King Lear ! l In Hamlet the grave-digger is one with the clown ! In
Othello, amidst all its bitter earnest, there are foolings and railleries.
In fact, Macbeth would be unique amongst the tragedies of Shak-
.spere if the comic element were utterly absent from it.

This law of contrast might be supported also from a purely
aesthetic point of view, no less than that of truthfulness to nature ;
and we might see in this matter as in others how

" Beauty is truth, truth beauty — that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know ; "

and be reminded of that fine mandate delivered to poets by one,
herself, of no mean poetic rank :

" Hold, in high poetic duty,
Truest Truth, the fairest Beauty."

(iv.) The Speech of the Porter is dramatically relevant. In order
to justify this speech as it stands, it is not enough to point out, as I
have tried to do, the general laws of relief and contrast by which
Shakspere works. For in his modes of providing relief and contrast
he does not proceed recklessly. He does not ignore harmony when
he aims at securing variety. There is a real concord in the seeming
discord. All things work together to one general effect. Amidst
apparent confusion and chaos there is absolute subordination and
symmetry.

1 " He complained of the Fool in Lear. I observed that he seemed to give
a terrible wildness to the distress ; but still he complained." See Words
worth's Notes of his conversations with Klopstock. Wordsworth's Memoirs,
i. 130, or Coleridge's BiograpJiia Literarla, Satyrane's Letters, iii. p. 172 of
the one-volumed edition.

264 MR HALES ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH.

Many things, having full reference
To one consent, may work contrariously :
As many arrows loosed several ways
Come to one mark ; as many ways meet in one town ;
As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea ;
As many lines close in the dial's centre.

Now, is the Porter speech incurably discrepant and incongruous
with the play of which it is a part 1

" After all," says Bodenstedt, " his uncouth comicality has a
tragic background ; he never dreams, while imagining himself a
porter of hell gate, of how near he comes to the truth. What are
all these petty sinners, who go to the everlasting bon-fire, compared
with those great criminals whose gates he guards ! "

" Yet, at all events," says Gervinus of this soliloquy, after
mentioning, as we have seen above, the theory of those who would
excise it, " it is not inappropriate ; there is an uncomfortable joviality
which by way of contrast is>very suitable to the circumstances, when
the drunken warder, whom Duncan's gifts or festivities of the evening
* have left in a state of excitement, calls his post ' hell gate,' in a
speech in which every allusion bears point."

Surely what these two comments put forward must have occurred
to every thoughtful reader. The whole speech of the Porter is in
fact a piece of powerful irony. " If a man were porter of hell-gate."
But is this man not so 1 What then is hell 1 and where are its gates ?
and what is there within them 1 What of the " Scorpions," of which
Macbeth's mind is presently full ? Knowing what we know of the
hideous transactions that night has witnessed in his castle, may
we not well say : " How dreadful is this place ! This is none other
but the house of the devil, and this is the gate of hell."

It may be well to notice here that the Porter of Hell was a not
unfamiliar figure in the old Mysteries. We find in Virgil, indeed,
what might have suggested some such official to the mediaeval mind,
if any suggestion was necessary. Virgil speaks of Cerberus as
" janitor" (JEn. vi. 400) and as " janitor Orci." (Ib. viii. 296). So
Silius after him speaks of the " Stygian Janitor " (Punic, iii. 35)

MR HALES ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH. 2G5

and so Fletcher in his Honest Man's Fortune (III. ii.) of " hell's
three-headed porter." But no classical suggestion was necessary for
such a creation. It was natural enough, when so much was talked
of St Peter with his keys keeping the gate of Heaven, that there
should be conceived an infernal counterpart of that celestial function
ary. In the Coventry Mysteries, Belial seems serving in this
capacity ; at least it is he who, when the " Sowle," " Anima Christi,"
" gotli to helle gatys, and seyth, * Attolite portas, principes, vestras,
et elevamini, porta? eternales, et introibit Rex Glorias.' " —

Ondothe youre gatys of sorwatorie !
On mannys sowle I haue inemorie ;
Here comyth now the kynge of glorye,

These gates for to breke !
Ye develys that arn here withinne,
Helle gatys ye xal unpynne ;
I xal dely vere mannys kynne ;

From wo I wole hem wreke. —

It is " Belyalle " who on this summons exclaims :

Alas ! alas ! out & harrow !
Onto thi byddynge must we bow ;
That thou art God now do we know ;

Of the had we grett dowte.
Agens the may no thynge stonde ;
Alle thynge obeyth to thyn honde ;
Bothe hevyn & helle, watyr & londe,

Alle thynge most to the lowte.

Belial, perhaps, is " the other devil " in the Porter's speech. In
a print engraved for Hearne from an old drawing we have a portrait
of this gate-keeper. It represents that Harrowing of Hell which is
dramatized in the Coventry Mysteries. Christ is. in the act of re
leasing various souls from the mouth of " the pit," to the extreme
disgust of the appointed Custodian, who appears to be blowing
a horn as a signal of alarm. Above his head is the legend, " Out

266 MR HALES ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH.

out aroynt." l In Hey wood's Four P'a the Pardoner tells how he was
anxious to find out in what estate stood the soul of a female friend
•who had died suddenly. His knowledge of her, as it would seem, not
leading him to look for her in Paradise, he proceeded to Purgatory,
and not finding her there he went to Hell.

And first to the devil that kept the gate

I came, and spake after this rate :

"All hail, Sir Devil," and made low «courtesy ;

" Welcome," quoth he thus smilingly.

He knew me well, and I at last

^Remembered him since long time past :

For as good hap would have it chance,

This devil and I were of old acquaintance ;

For oft in the play of Corpus Christi

He hath played the devil at Coventry.

By his acquaintance and my behaviour

He showed to me a right friendly favour ;

And to make my return the shorter,

I said to the devil, " Good Master Porter

For all old love, if it be in your power

Help me to speak with my lord and your.

" Be sure," quoth he, " no tongue can tell

What time thou couldst have come so well ;

For as on this day Lucifer fell,

Which is our festival in hell.

Nothing unreasonable craved this day

That shall in hell have any nay.

But yet beware thou come not in

Till time thou may thy passport win,2 &c.

1 A reprint of this grotesque picture may be seen in Hone's Ancient
Mysteries described.

2 See Hazlitt's Dodslctfs Old Plays, i. 373-4 ; see 'also, ib. ii. 171, The
Nice Wanton : —

I would not pass

So that I might bear a rule in hell by the mass,
To toss firebrands at these pennyfathers' pates
I would be porter, and receive them at the gates ;
In boiling lead and brimstone I would seeth them each one..

MR HALES ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH. 207

(v.) Are the style and language of the Porter's speech Sha7c-
sperian ?

Surely the fancy, which is the main part of the Porter's speech,
must be allowed to be eminently after the manner of Shakspere. He
was well acquainted with the older stage, as his direct references to it
show, as those to the Vice in Twelfth Night, IV. ii. ; 1 Henry, IV, II.
iv.; 2 Henry IV, III. ii.; Richard III, III. i.; Hamlet, III. iv. ; and
this conception of an infernal janitor is just such a piece of antique
realism as he would delight in. He has it elsewhere ; sae Othello,
IV. ii. 90, where Othello cries out to E.nilia :

You, mistress,

That have the office opposite to St Peter,
And keep the gate of hell. ,

The manner in which Macduff " draws out " the Porter is exactly
like that of Shakspere in similar circumstances elsewhere. " What
three things does drink especially provoke?" says Macduff; and then
the Porter delivers himself of his foolery, which is coarse enough, and
to our taste highly offensive, it must be allowed. Compare the way
in which Orlando is made to elicit the wit of Rosalind in As You Like
It, III. ii. 323, et seq., &c. If this likeness of manner has no great
positive, yet it has some negative value. We see that the manner is
not tm-Shaksperian, if it cannot be pronounced definitely Shak-
sperian ; .and we need not go to Middleton's plays for an illustration
of it.

The passage is written in the rhythmic, or numerous, prose, that
is so favourite a form with Shakspere. Compare it in this respect,
for instance, with Mrs Quickly's account of Falstaff's end. See
7/6/2. V, II. iii. 9—28.

And so for the language, there is certainly nothing in it un-Shak-
sperian. The use of " old " in " old turning of the key" occurs in 2
Henry IV, II. iv. 21, " old Vtis ;" the Merry Wives of Windsor, L
iv. 5, "an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English;"
Much Ado about Nothing, V. ii. 98, " yonder's old coil at home; '•
equivocation in Hamlet, V. i. 149 ; French Hose in Henri/ V, III.
vii. 56 ; comp. Merchant of Venice, I. ii. 80. Devil-porter it is 'accord-

268 MR HALES ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH.

ing to a very frequent Shaksperian construction, as " prince it," in
Cymbeline, III. iii. 85 ; " dukes it," in Measure fen' Measure, III.
ii. 100. Compare, especially, "I cannot daub it farther," in King
Lear, IV. i. 53 ; and " I'll queen it no inch farther," in Winter's
Tale, IV. iv. 460.

The most striking phrase in the passage is certainly " the prim
rose way to the everlasting bonfire ; " and in Hamlet (I. iii. 50)
Ophelia speaks of " the primrose path of daliance."

I have not been careful to allude in this Paper to what is com
monly said as to the disputed passage by those who allow it to be
1 y Shakspere, that it was inserted for the sake of the groundlings,
or the gods, as we should say, because I am not inclined to think
that Shakspere would have made any undue sacrifice to that part of
his audience. They were certainly to be considered by a theatrical
writer, and certainly Shakspere did not forget them. But to suppose
that he would have glaringly disfigured — if the passage is to be re
garded a disfigurement — one of the greatest passages of his art from
any such consideration, is surely audacious and extravagant. More
over, is it so certain that such an interruption of the terror would
have gratified the ' groundling ' ? Would not the genuine animal —
and individuals of his species were and are to be found in other
parts of the theatre besides that from which he derives his name —
have preferred that

"On horror's head horror" should "accumulate"? — •
that the darkness should be deepened, his blood yet more severely
chilled, his every hair made to stand on end 1 The thorough-bred
sensationalist would surely vote the Porter to be an obnoxious
intrusion. He would long for a draught of raw terror, and it is from
such a potation that the Porter debars him.

The argument on which the rejectors of the passage take their
stand is the intrinsic inferiority of it. An unsatisfactory argument.
It involves two questions : First, is the inferiority of it so signal and
admitted 1 and, secondly, if it is so, yet is the passage therefore not
by Shakspere ] As to the former question, without contending that
the soliloquy is a masterpiece of comedy, and the following dialogue
a supreme flight of wit, yet surely the Porter holds his own well

MR HALES ON THE PORTER IN MACBETH. 269

enough as compared with corresponding persons in other plays. Is
the wit of the grave-digger in Hamlet, for example, so very superior 1
Again, have those who thus condemn him taken well into account that
coherence of his speech with the main action of the drama, which has
been dwelt upon above 1 With regard to the second question, sup
pose the inferiority of the Porter be conceded, are we to believe that
Shakspere is always equal to himself — that he is always at his best,
and never slumbers nor sleeps] " Interdum dormitat Homerus."
Homer is sometimes caught napping. But Shakspere never 1
No one would deliberately say so ; and yet perpetually critics argue
on this presumption. If anything distinctly un-Shaksperian, or
thought to be un-Shaksperian, can be pointed out either in the lan
guage or the style or the thought or the connection, then of the
authenticity of the passage containing it our suspicions may be justly
encouraged. But we cannot be too cautious in condemning a passage
simply because it seems to us comparatively weak and forceless.
Our eyes may not be good. And, if they are ever so good, yet it
must be remembered that in Shakspere's life, no less than in the lives
of lesser men, there must have been times when all the wheels of his
being were slow, when the " nimble spirits " seemed ! prisoned up in
the arteries, and the divine energy of his genius fainted and languished.
The general conclusion justified by what has been advanced in
the course of this paper seems to me to be this : that the Porter is
undoubtedly a part of the original play, and that the general concep
tion of his speech is certainly Shakspere's : with regard to the
expression, that part of it is most certainly Shakspere's, and, for
the rest, no sufficient reason has yet been urged to countenance any
doubt that it too is by Shakspere.

J, W. HALES.

1 "Poysons up," in the 1623, Fol.

270

DISCtTSSION ON FIFTH PAPER. PORTER IK MACBETH.
May 22, 1874.

MR TOM TAYLOR, M.A. : — It now becomes my duty as occupying
the chair to propose a vote of thanks to Mr Hales for his extremely
interesting and well-reasoned paper. I certainly am not in a mood
to commence a discussion on the subject, for I so entirely agree with
the conclusion and the reasoning of the Paper, that I find it difficult
to conceive any grounds to warrant a different conclusion. The
reasons set forth by Mr Males appear to me so consonant with what
we know of Shakspere, the general character of his plays, his lan
guage, and the relation of serious and comic in his treatment of
dramatic subjects, that to me they carry absolute conviction that the
Porter's speech is an integral part of the play.

It is always very useful in forming opinions about Shakspere to
be conversant with the action of the play upon the stage. Xobody I
venture to think can full}) appreciate Shakspere unless he sees his
plays acted as well as reads them, because the art of Shakspere for
stage purposes is just as marvellous as his art as a poet, a psychologist,
and a delineator of character and action. In fact, when we consider what
the theatre practically was in Shakspere's time, what his material aids
and appliances were, it often occurs to me that his art of stage
structure and arrangement is one of the most wonderful things in,
connection with him, because all these appliances had to be con
structed entirely in the imagination. He had a plain platform and
a curtain behind him, an entrance or two, and a means of appearing
at an upper window. Everything else had to be conceived ; and yet
he has constructed and arranged scenes which admit of the best
appliances of the most skilful stage mechanists and painters.

He has, in fact, done for the material appliances of the theatre
something equivalent to what he has done in the female characters of
his plays. He had only boys to act these parts, and yet he has
conceived characters which cannot be adequately embodied but by
the most womanly of women.

With reference to the exigencies of the action, the knocking is of
great importance. It heightens" the horror 'of the scene in a very
extraordinary degree, and also gives relief to the intensity of the
situation. Looking at the scene as a practical dramatist, I see that
it is absolutely necessary to get Macbeth off the stage. A motive

DISCUSSION. MAY 22. MR TOM TAYLOR ON THE MACBETH PORTER. 271

must be contrived for this. That motive is at once supplied "by the
sudden knocking. It creates alarm, gets rid of Macbeth and his wife,
raises the castle, and gives them time to dress and nerve themselves
to meet the crowd which will shortly assemble, and to face the dis
covery of the murder which cannot be longer deferred. Thus the
knocking at the gate serves, as almost everything does in Shakspere,
a double purpose. It intensifies the horror, and gets rid of Mac
beth just when his absence is wanted. A practical dramatist always
has to think of this. Then a speech is necessary here, that Macbeth
may change his dress before he returns. There again comes in the
practical dramatist. The way the matter is arranged on the stage at
present is this : the Porter does not speak the speech, but he comes
on slowly, stretching himself and yawning as if suddenly waked up,
and makes a long business of unlocking the door, and taking down
the bars, and so contrives to fill up the time by action instead of the
speech, which is too coarse for our tastes.

Then, again, it seems to me that the Porter's scene is quite in
keeping with Shakspere's practice of bringing the lowest characters
into contact with the most tragic incidents and most elevated per
sonages of his plays. The manner in which this is managed here,
without improbability and without violence, is another illustration
of Shakspere's admirable art in this respect.

I am very glad that Mr Hales has quoted that passage out of Mrs
Siddons' Diary which shows you how thoroughly qualified she was to
appreciate the part of Lady Macbeth, and gives you the secret of her
effect in it. It is all very well to talk of actors not feeling their parts ;
but no actor ever made the least impression in a character who had not
first felt it. They may not feel it always in acting, but there is at
least a remembered feeling. No actor is ever worth anything who is
not capable of feeling strongly in the course of his study of a part ;
and the best actors act their best when they feel strongly, even in
the course of their acting, though they have to control their emotion
for the sake of their art.

When Mrs Siddons came back to London at 29 or 30 years of
age, it was long before she would play Lady Macbeth. She said it
was beyond the proper pale of feminine conception. She would not
act the part until induced by the persuasions of Fox, Sir Joshua
Eeynolds, Burke, and others of her most intellectual friends. On
the occasion of her first performing the part, Sir Joshua Eeynolds
designed her costume, and I have seen an entry in Fox's diary of his
going to see her first* performance of the character, and sitting in the
orchestra so as to be as near to her as possible.

With reference to the juxtaposition of serious and comic — I
attach great importance to Mr Hales's remark, that if it were not
for this introduction of the Porter there would be no passage of
human comedy in the whole of Macbeth. Now absolutely unmixed
and unrelieved tragedy or comedy is out of keeping with Shak-

TllANSACTIOXS. 13

272 DISCUSSION. MAY 22. MR TOM TAYLOR ON THE MACBETH PORTER.

spere's practice. In his plays, whether the comic element or the
tragic predominates, the other is always to be found. This is quite
as true of the comedies as of the tragedies. That is a great dis
tinction of Shakspere's, and lifts his art immeasurably above the
art of most other dramatic writers. The English public likes such
an intermixture ; and the English Drama, created by the popular
taste, reflects the popular taste in this respect. Other dramas have
risen in Courts as the French drama did, and have reflected the state-
liness, high-flown manners, stilted delivery, and so on, of the Court.
These plays in their tragic form have no breath of natural life.

Then, there are the German plays, which are, above all, literary and
rhetorical. As the German character is singularly devoid of playful
ness and gaiety, they are usually dull, and their comedy, when they
attempt it, is of the clumsiest and most elephantine character j re
minding one of the German baron, who jumped over the chairs to
learn to be lively. It is curious to notice that Benedix, in his Shak-
speromanie, finds one of his grounds of condemning Shakspere in
his intermixture of gravity and gaiety. He really and sincerely
believes that Schiller and Goethe are better dramatists than Shak
spere. I have seen Goethe's plays presented on the stage, and I
must say that to my mind Goethe's comedy is very heavy. There
is no reality of life in it. Indeed, if I may speak my mind freely,
I do not think that there are any works in dramatic literature more
over-estimated than the plays of Goethe and Schiller- — excepting as
rhetorical compositions. As dramatic works, if the essence of the
drama be the presentation of life and character, I think they can
hardly be rated too low ; and especially I feel this when I compare
what they mean for life with that which animates Shakspere's every
line.

As regards Shakspere's familiarity with the old mysteries, there
was nothing, in fact, with which he was more familiar. Arid he was
through that channel perfectly conversant with that notion of the
" devil-porter." Then, again, with regard to the comedy of the
passage being a concession to the popular demands ; — it was a con
cession, I think, which Shakspere made without reluctance. It was
something he himself relished as well as his audiences, because of a
kindred comprehensiveness in the nature of both. No doubt they
followed him more easily, and perhaps more sympathetically in his
lower flights than his higher ; but to a great extent they followed him
in both. Every dramatist feels that he must not keep his hearers upon
the stretch of one mood too long. The best dramatist is the one who
manages his " relief " most naturally, who makes the darkness grow
out of the light or the light out of the darkness, without too much
strain, or harshness of contrast. There is something of this inter
mixture in every dramatic work that takes any hold of the English
public. It is shown even in the vulgar melodrama, in which the
fun and pathos are distributed in different scenes, like the fat and

DISCUSSION. MAY 22. MR FURNIVALL ON THE MACBETH PORTER. 273

lean of bacon. I must, in conclusion, again express my agreement
both in the arguments and the conclusions of the Paper. It is, I
must say, a matter on which I have never felt any doubt. I have
always thought the rejection of the Porter one of the few weak
points in Coleridge's criticism of Shakspere, and I hold him and
Goethe, beyond comparison, Shakspere's best critics. I am surprised
that editors so intelligent as Clark and Wright concur in his doubt.
I will not express any opinion about the alleged interpolations of
Middleton, because I have not studied that subject.

MR FURNIVALL : — Those points of our Chairman's, — that the stage
must be cleared, and that the Porter must have a speech,— are gains.
I hope he will often come among us, to give us the benefit of his
practical knowledge of the stage.

As to the Porter's speeches, I have but a little to add to my old
friend's well-written, well-reasond, paper, in the conclusions of which
I heartily agree. 1. It seems to me that the sole reason for the
objection to these passages is : want of humour in the objectors.
They cannot see " the grim humour " l of the Porter's speech, and
therefore they declare Shakspere didn't write it. I appeal to any
one with a sense of humour, whether this Porter bit is not the very
kind of thing we ought to have 1 Granted that time must be given
to Macbeth and his wife to wash their hands, &c., that the terror of
the last scene must be relievd, that visitors are knocking outside ;
then, what can be more natural and happy, than that a Porter should
say some grimly humorous words about his own calling, of course
with unconscious reference to the fiend-like deed just done ; and
that, being a Scotch Porter before a London audience, he should be
well soakt, in the philosophizing stage of drunkenness, and philoso
phize on those topics since so often seizd on (whether libellously or
not) as characteristic of the nation's talk and act — hell-fire and lech
ery ; 2 — and that he should wind up with that, " I pray you, remem-

1 This was the phrase I used to a friend about the scene a week ago ; and
on asking Dr George Macdonald (yesterday, May 21, after his Lecture at Lady
Ducie's) what he thought of the genuineness of the Porter's speech, he said,
" Look at the grim humour of it. I believe it's genuine." Broad comedy
would have been out of place here.

8 One may be importing into this some modern ideas of Scotch hell-fire
doctrines, whisky-drinking, the bothy-system and number of illegitimate
births. But national habits are more or less permanent, arising largely from
soil, climate, and race. John Knox's date is 1505-72. William Lauder says
to the Scotch in 1568 :

" I neid nocht rekkin ^our filthye Harlotrie :
It is so knawin our alquhair, oppinlie ;
Quhilk to rehearse, It mak[i]s me abhor ! "

Ane Godlle Tractate, 1. -198-500 ; p. 19, ed. F. J. F. 1870 :
and see on p. 15, 16, the General Assembly's Articles of 1565, &c., against the
" witchcraft, sorcery, adultery, manifest whoredome, maintenance of bordels,"
&c., which "now abound within this Realme."

274: DISCN. MAY 22. MR BROWNING AND MR ELLIS ON THE PORTER.

ber the Porter " — his fee ! Wasn't all Scotland begging for English
posts and fees from 1603 to 1607, or whenever Macbeth was written *?
How could a Scotch Porter be better hit off? Surely he must be a
dull soul who can't see the humour of the character. I should like
to have Mr Carlyle's opinion on the point. It is not one on which
I think Coleridge's judgment worth much.1 Lamb's, now, would be
a different thing : so too Mr Browning's.

[P.S. Sunday, May 24, 1874. Chatting with Mr Browning this
afternoon, I askt him for his opinion on the point, and he answerd :
" Certainly the speech is full of humour ; and as certainly the
humour and words are Shakspere's. I cannot understand Coleridge's
objection to it. It's as bad as his wanting to emend blanket by Hank
he if/ht t in,

£for Heauen peepe through the blanket of the davke.

Macbeth, I. v.

l< As to Lamb, I've no doubt that he held the speech genuine,
for he said, that on his pointing out to his friend Munden the
quality of the Porter's speech, Munden was duly struck by it, and
expresst his regret at never having playd the part."]

As to King James and his Scotch courtiers, if they could see the
humour of the Porter's state and words, they would have thought it
and them natural, under the circumstances, and enjoyd 'em. But 1
suppose the touches of the speech were meant for Scotchmen to miss,
and Englishmen to catch ; they'd see that the cap fitted.

Mr A. J. Ellis writes to me : — " You are not likely to hear the
Porter's speech in England, where it is always omitted. I have
heard it delivered (or at least a part of it) in Germany,, and, if only
by the effect of this contrast2 between the wonderful scene before it — •
while the audience knows all the horrors off the stage — and the dis
covery of the deed afterwards, I should judge that it ought to be
Shakspere's. This sudden transition, this unconcerned joking of the
Porter, this Shaksperian analysis of what drink provokes, this light
scene showing the utter unpreparedness of Macduff and Lennox, is
to me perfection of art. But people can't stand the lechery bit iiow-
a-days, and hence we lose the whole, and do not feel how unconcerned
the world is when great things are doing, and how light-heartedly a
man (like Macduff) stumbles into ' horror, tongue nor heart cannot
conceive nor name.' "

Mr Spedding also writes : — " As to the Porter's soliloquy, I am

1 To his " disgusting," one may answer " weak sentimentalism."

2 Mr and Mrs Cowden Clarke, in their Annotated edition of Shakespeare,
Note 27, Act II., say of the scene : " Its repulsively coarse humour serves
powerfully to contrast, yet harmonise, with the base and gory crime that has
been perpetrated. Shakespeare's subtelties of harmony in contrast are among
his most marvellous powers ; and we venture to think that this Porter scene is
one of these subtelties. See Note 43, Act IV., Romeo and Juliet

DISCUSSION. MAY 22. " EQUIVOCATOR. RHYTHMICAL PROSE. 2/5

quite with you (except perhaps as to his being meant for a repre
sentative Scotch-man, for I think that if the castle had been in
England, he would have made the same speech). It must be now
above 40 years since I wrote a paper in the Englishman's Magazine
on the stage corruptions of Shakspere, especially in the case of
Romeo and Juliet, in which Fanny Kemble had then just come out ;
and I remember quoting the Porter's soliloquy in Macbeth (in defiance
of Dr Johnson — for Coleridge's opinion was not then known) as an
instance of Shakspere's art, and as a scene which, in the transition
from the murder to the discovery, could not be dispensed with
without material injury to the effect. And I have never had the
least doubt that it was Shakspere's, every word. I was very glad to
see Mr Hales's paper about it."

Prof. Dowden writes : — " I think a Shaksperian thing about
the passage is its shortness. It's just all that is necessary, and no
more. A playwright, inserting it for the groundlings, would have
given more of it, and have given irrelevant jokes : but there are none
of them."

2. On the argument from the use of the word " equivocator" —
that Shakspere would not have alluded by it to the trial of Garnet
in 1606, or to any of the Jesuits who are said to have invented the
term "equivocation" (the practice must be as old as man), — I think
we should ask whether Shakspere did not make the Porter use this
word, as well as " hell-gate," with unconscious reference to Macbeth,
who even then had began to find that he " could not equivocate to
heaven." The equivocator1 who the Porter says is "here," and
whom he tells to " come in," is, in one sense, depend on it, the same
Macbeth,2 of whom Macduff says a few lines on, " here he comes,"
and who begins to equivocate forthwith.

To Mr Hales's instances of Shakspere's contrasts, I add, that in
Romeo and Juliet, after the pathos of Juliet's supposed death, comes
the nonsense of Peter and the Musicians ; in Othello, after Act III.
Sc. iii., in which Othello vows Desdemona's death, Scene iv. begins,
"Enter Desdemona, Emilia, and Clown"

3. As I feel myself a rhythm in this speech that reminds me of
other parts of Shakspere's work, I venture to mark it, as if in beats,
— " the triplex, sir, is a good tripping measure." Twelfth Night, 'V. i. —
and set it beside a beat-differing noble speech of Yolumnia's — not
withstanding the protest Mr Ellis sends me against the degradation of
the process — to see whether the rhythm strikes other ears as it does
mine, and to give a chance of comparing both passages with a rhyth
mical-prose bit of Middleton's : —

1 " A secret liar or equivocator is such a one as "by mental reservations
and other tricks, deceives him to whom he speaks, being lawfully called to
deliver all the truth." — FULLER, Holy State, p. 290, in Latham's Johnson.

2 Flathe contends that Banquo is the person meant. FURNESS'S admirable
Variorum Macbeth, p. 479. (What a debt we all owe Mr Furness !)

276 DISCUSSION. MAY 22. SHAKSPERE's RHYTHMICAL PROSE.

Macbeth.

Here's a | knocking | indeede !

if a man | were Porter | of Hell gate,1

he should haue | old turning | the Key.

Knock | Knock, Knock | Who's there,

I' th' name | of Bellzebub ?

Here's a farmer | that hang'd [ himselfe

on th' ex]pectaltion of | Plentie.

Come in time ; | have Napkins | enow

about you : | here you'le | sweat for't :

Knock | knock ! | Who's there,

in the other Devjils Name ?

Faith | here's an Eiquivojcator

That could sweare | in both | the Scales

against | eyther | Scale ;

who committed Treason | enough

for God's sake | yet | could not

equivocate to | heaven.

Oh come in, | Equivo|cator.

Knock | knock, knock | Who's there ?

Faith, [ here's an | English | taylor,

come hither | for stealing | out of

a French Hose. | Come in, | taylor !

Here | you may rost | your Goose !

Knock, knock, | Never at | quiet.

What are you ?

But this place | is too cold | for Hell.

I'le Deuill | Porter it no | further.

I had thought | to haue let | in some

of all | Professions | that goe

the primirose way

to the ev'erlasting | Bonfire.

Anon | Anon !

I pray you j remember | the Porter.

Coriolanus, Act I. Sc. iii. (p. 4, col. 1,

Booth), Volumnia :

When yet | hee was but | tender-bodied
and the onlye | sonne of my | womb ;
when youth | with comelinesse | pluck'd
all gaze | his way: | when, for
a day | of Kings | entreaties,
a Mother | should not I sel him
an houre I from her befholding ;
I, | considering | how Honour
would bejcome such a | person ;
That it was | no better | than Picture-
like to | hang by | the wall,
If renowne | made it not | stirre —
was pleased | to let him | seeke danger
where he | was like | to finde fame.
To a cru[ell warre | I sent him,
from whence | he rejturned
his browes | bound with | oake.
I tell thee, | daughter, | I sprang not
more | in ioy | at first hearing
he was | a man-jchild,
then now | in first j seeing
he had prou|ed himselfe J a man.2

1 Mr Spedding (whom Mr Simpson follows) would make the first line a
hexameter, though he doesn't recognize any beat further on. Rosaline's " Now
tell me | how long you [ would have her after | you have pos-|sess'd her"
(As you like it, IV. i.) has 6 beats too ; also in Love's Labour's Lost, says Mr
Simpson, " Here comes | one with a | paper : j God give him | grace to |
groan."

2 Mr Richard Simpson, who has workt a good deal at Shakspere's rhythmical
prose, writes : —

I have not done the Macbeth piece. I doubt whether I could include it
among the bits of metrical prose. It begins well enough, quite in Shakspere's
swing ; but it soon loses itself in an unmeasured gabble. If you can read it

thus — and my only difficulty is in knocking (for all the authorities of the day

make the participial termination ing long — and even yet it is the great crux
of music setters, who never know what to do with it):

Heres a j knocking in|deed, if a | man were | porter of | hell-gate
He should | have old | turning the | key
Knock, knock | knock ! Who's | there i' the | name of | Beelzebub 1

DISCUSSION. MAY 22. SIIAKSPERE'S RHYTHMICAL PROSE. 277

Yolumnia's next speech lias a beat in it too :

Then his good | report | should have beene | my Sonne :

I therein | would haue found | issue.

Heare me | professe | sincerely,

Had I | a doz|en sons,

Each in | my loue alike,

And none | lesse deere | then thino

And my | good Marjtius,

I had rather | had eleuen | dye

Nobly, | for theire | Countrey,

Then one, | volup|tuously,

Surfet | out of | Action.

Compare too, in Troilus, V. iii., Pandarus's

and I have | a rheum in | mine eyes too ;
and such | an ache in | iny bones,
that unless | a man were | cursed,
I cannot | tell what to | think on't.

Heres a | farmer that ] hang'd himself | on | th'expec|tation of | plenty
Come in | time, have | napkins ejnowa|boutyou; | here you'll | sweat for't

All this is exactly Shakspere's combination of trochaic and dactylic
measure. Compare the opening of the Tempest : —

Bo I son — Here | master what [ cheer (dac.)

Good | speak to the | mariners | fall to'fc ] yarely (tro. dac.)

or we run | ourselves j aground | bestir | bestir (iam.)

Heigh my hearts | cheerly (tro. dac.)

Cheerly my | hearts yare | yare (tro. dac.)

Take in the | topsail (tro. dac.)

Tend to the | masters | whistle (tro. dac.)

Blow till thou burst thy wind ; if room enough. (iam.)

Good | bo'son have | care (dac.)

Where's the | master? | play the | men (tro.)

You see here is the same musical law presiding over the declamation,
as in the opening of the " Devil-porter."

There is the same progression in Cor. I. 3 :

When | yet he | was but | tender | bodied (tro.)

And the | only | son of my j womb (tro. dac.)

When J youth with j comeliness ' pluck'd all | gaze his | way (tro. dac.)

278 DISCUSSION. MAY 22. SHAKSPERE's RHYTHMICAL PROSE.

And note that Shakspere often begins his prose speeches or
sayings with words that run easily into the triple beat : —

Cymbeline, II. iii. Cl. I would | this music | would come.
I would | I was up | so late

III. i. His niajesjty bids you | welcome

*III. v. It is Post|humus hand | I know't

Give me | thy hand ; here's | my purse
have | my lord, at | my lodging

Meet thee | at Milford
Bring this | apparel to

Haven

my chamber

Sirrah | is this let|ter true] (1 line.)
II. i. Was there ev|er man had | such luck !

I. iv. Believe it, | sir, I have | seen him.

lach. You may wear | her in tijtle yours

That lady is not now | living

Post. She holds | her vir|tue still

lach. You must not | so far prefer her

Frend. Sir, you ) o'er-rate my | poor kindness

Plii. His fajther and I | were soldiers

lacli. With five time | so much conversation

Would I had put | my estate

You are afraid | and therein | the wiser.

I em [brace these conditions.

As you like it, IV. i. No, faith, | die by attorney.

I conclude, then, that the Porter's speeches are distinctly Shak-
spere's in grim and pregnant humour, in word and beat; that only
he who has no humour in his soul, will object to them ; while he
who only says they are not Shakspere's, will alter his opinion on
further study.

I now turn to the question — raisd by Mr Clark in the Preface to
Messrs Clark and Wright's Clarendon Press school edition of Mac
beth, — whether Middleton wrote, or is likely to have written, the

"When for a [ day of | kings en treaties (tro. dac.)

A | mother | should not | tell him (tro.)

An | hour from | her be| holding (tro.)

I conjsidring (tro.)

How hon|our would | become | such a person (iam. anap.)

But the dactylic swing is much more concealed. Coleridge has somewhere
some observations upon the whole matter. I forget where. It deserves a
very attentive study (I mean the whole subject).

DISCUSION. MAY 22. SPECIMENS OF MIDDLETON's WRITING. 279

Porter's first speech. In turning over Middleton's works, I came on
the following knocking-scene in one of his Comedies : —

Middleton, I. 254-5. Blurt, Master Constable, Act II. Sc. ii.

FRISCO [with in] Who, the pox, knocks 1

DOYT [within] One that will knock thy coxcomb, if he do not enter.

FRIS. \within\ If thou dost not enter, how canst thou knock me 1

DOYT [within] Why then I'll knock thee when I do enter.

FRIS. [within] Why then thou shalt not enter, but instead of me,
knock thy heels.

IMP. Keep the door.

FRIS. That's my office : indeed, I have been your door-keeper
so long, that all the hinges, the spring-locks, and the ring, are worn
to pieces. How if anybody knock at the door ?

IMP. Let them enter1 [exit Frisco] Fie, fie, fie, fie, his great
tongue does so run through my little ears ! 'tis more harsh than a
younger brother's courting of a gentlewoman, when he has no crowns.

Is this the hand that wrote " the Porter's Speech " 1 I trow not.
Again, take a bit of Middleton's rhythmical prose, and compare*
it with the Porter's or Yolumnia's speeches as given above : —

Blurt, Master Constable, 1602, in Lamb's Specimens, ii. 297 :

Imp. Good truth | pretty | Wedlock,
thou makest | my little | eyes smart
with washing | themselves | in brine.
I' mar | such a | sweet face !
and wipe off | that dain|ty red !
and make | Cupid | toll
the bell | for your love- | sick heart !
no, | no, no, | if he were
Jove's own | ingle | Ganymede —
fie, | fie, fie, | I'll none.
Your Chain] ber-fellow's ] within
Thou shalt | enjoy him.

Again I say, is this the hand that wrote the Porter and Yolumnia 1
To my ear it is not. Indeed, I doubt altogether the passages in
Macbeth that Messrs Clark and Wright assign to Middleton — the
Serjeant, &c., in Act I. Sc. iii. 1-37 ; II. i. 61 ; II. iii. (Porter, &c.) ;
III. v.; IY. i. 39-47; IY. iii. 140-159 [plain Shakspere, to me];
1 Y. ii. ; Y. viii. 35-75 — being that dramatist's. Messrs Clark and
Wright give no references to any parallel passages in any of Middle-
ton's works (except part of the Witches' scenes) to enable a student

1 Sec. Watch. How if a' will not stand 1

Dog. Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go. Much Ado, III.
iii. 28—30.

280 DISCN. MAY 22. MIDDLETON COULDN'T WRITE "THE PORTER."

to compare them, in style and thought with the doubted Macbeth
bits. Had they had any such passages before them, the references
could have been given in two lines. I have gone hastily through
the five volumes of Dyce's edition of Middleton without coming on
a trace of any passage like the Serjeant's or Porter's speeches, the
King's-evil lines, the sustaind ryme of Hecate in III. v. — little up to
Shakspere's usual work as that is, — or the end of Macbeth. I hope
some Member of our Society who knows Middleton well will give us
his opinion on the point. For myself, I doubt Middleton's being
up to the level of the Porter's speech, &c. His specialty was surely
light third-class comedy ; and though he wrote Tragedies, yet, as in
Women, beware Women, almost every scene of his Tragedy would do
just as well for a Comedy, till all the sharers in the mixture of incest
and adultery are poisond in a huddle at the end. And, as Dr
Nicholson writes to me, u is there a song in his plays that has ever
been quoted, or that ever left a remembrance of itself in the reader's
mind?" Dyce says of Middleton,

" Webster and Ford . . were assuredly poets of a higher order.
The dramatists with whom, in my opinion, Middleton ought properly
to be classed — tho' superior to him in some respects, and inferior in
others — are Dekker, Heywood, Marston, and Chapman : nor perhaps
does William Rowley fall so much below them that he should be
excluded from the list." — Dyce, Middleton's Works, vol. i. p. Ivii.

T. Middleton was buried July 4, 1627; his first works were
? Wisdom of Solomon, 1597 ; Old Law, 1599. The best bit of his
I can find, is in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Act V. Sc. i. ; Works,
v. 82, ed. Dyce : —

Sir Wai. 0 my vengeance i'
Let me for ever hide my cursed face
From sight of those that darken all my hopes,
And stand between me and the sight of heaven !
Who sees me now, " ho to," and those so near me,
May rightly say I am o'ergrown with sin.
O, how my offences wrestle with my repentance !
It hath scarce breath :
Still my adulterous guilt hovers aloft,
And with her black wings beats down all my prayers
Ere they be half way up. * What's he knows now
How long I have to live 1 0, what comes then ]
My taste grows bitter ; the round world, all gall now ;
Her pleasing pleasures now have poison'd me,
Which I exchanged my soul for :
Make way a hundred sighs at once for me !

This piece is quite exceptionally good. Middleton's ordinary

1 Compare Angelo in Meas. for Meas., II. iv., and the King in Hamlet ,
III. iii.— Hales.

DISCUSSION. MAY 22. SPECIMENS OP MIDDLETON's VERSE. 281

style is a choppy and prosaic one, cut into verse lines, many of which
are pure prose. Compare the deserted husband, Leantio's soliloquy
in Women, beware Women, — evidently meant as very good work at
an important crisis of the play, iv. 592 : —

Lean. Is she my wife till death, yet no more mine 1
That's a hard measure : then, what's marriage good for ?
Methinks, by right I should not now be living,
And then 'twere all well. What a happiness
Had I been made of, had I never seen her !
For nothing makes man's loss grievous to him
But knowledge of the worth of what he loses ;
For what he never had, he never misses.
She's gone for ever, utterly ; there is
As much redemption of a soul from hell,
As a fair woman's body from his1 palace.
Why should my love last longer than her truth ?
What is there good in woman to be lov'd,
When only that which makes her so, has left her 1
I cannot love her now, but T must like
Her sin and my own shame too ; and be guilty
Of law's breach with her, and mine own abusing ;
All which were monstrous : then my safest course,
For health of mind and body,2 is to turn
My heart, and hate her, most extremely hate her ;
I have no other way : those virtuous powers
Which were chaste witnesses of both our troths,
Can witness she breaks first. And I'm rewarded
With captainship of the fort : a place of credit,

1 must confess, but poor ; my factorship

Shall not exchange means with 't : he that died last in 't,

He was no drunkard, yet he died a beggar

For all his thrift : besides, the place not fits me ;

It suits my resolution, not my breeding.

Works, vol. iv. p. 592.

Take another piece from a drama which, says Dyce, Langbaine,
not undeservedly, calls ' excellent.'

Count. Nor did I ever boast of lands unto you,
Money or goods ; I took a plainer course,
And told you true, I'd nothing :
If error were committed, 'twas by you ;
Thank your own folly : nor has my sin oeen

1 the Duke's

2 Cp. Lydgate's phrase, " For helthe of body," in his Dietary.

282 DISCN. MAY 22. BOMBAST IN THE SCOTCH SERJEANT'S SPEECH.

So odious, but worse has been forgiven ;
Nor am I so deform'd, but I may challenge
The utmost power of any old man's love.

She that tastes not sin before [twenty], twenty to one but she'll
taste it after : most of you old men are content to marry young
virgins, &c. [winding up with two lines of ryme].

T. Middleton, A Trick to catch the old owe.— Works, iii. 96.

Till, then, Messrs Clark and "Wright give us more evidence to
justify their suggestion that Middleton " interpolated " Macbeth
after Shakspere's death, or that Shakspere wrote his wondrous Play
" in conjunction " with Middleton, or another as " collaborates "
(Preface to Clarendon-Press edition of Macbeth, 1871, p. xii.), we
need not trouble ourselves much about the matter.

With regard to the bombast in the Serjeant's speeches in Act I.
Sc. ii., I believe it is inserted purposely. Scotch boasting and brag
ging had been long a familiar complaint among Englishmen ; and
Scotchmen's use of big long words is seen in all their Middle-time
books. On the first point, Andrew Boorde says in 1547,

" I am a Scotyshe man, and trew I am to Eraunce ;
In euery countrey, myself I do auaunce.
7 will boost myself e, / wyll crake and face ;
I loue to be exalted, here and in euery place . . .
Great morder and theft in tymes past 1 have used. . .

" Also it is naturally giuen | or els it is of a deullyshe dysposicion
of a Scotysh man, not to loue nor fauour an Englyshe man.1 . . The
people of the countrey be hardy men, and stronge men, and well
fauored . . but of al nasyons they wyll face, crake, and boost them-
selfe, theyr frendes, and theyr country, aboue reason ; for many wyll
make strong lyes." Introduction, p. 135, p. 137, ed. E. J. E. 1870.

" And Sabellicus saieth that Scottes muche delyghte and reioyce
in Hying." — Halle's Chronicle, p. 55, ed. 1809. Therefore, making the
Serjeant brave and bombastic, would be right. And just ear-marking
the Play by touches of provincialism in two of the minor characters —
not carrying it through all the greater ones, — would be right too, I
think.

Mr P. A. Daniel writes to me : — " I bow to the authority of
Clark and Wright in this matter, though I must confess I should not
of myself suspect another author. I even doubt whether they could
substantiate all the statements of their preface. For instance, p. x,
they say, — ' Shakespeare's good sense would hardly have tolerated the
absurdity of sending a severely-wounded soldier to carry the news of

1 A Scotchman's most amusing opinion of the abominable Englishman in
1549, may be seen in The Complaynt of Scotland.

DISCUSSION. MAY 22. SHAKSPERfi's 4-BEAT VERSE. 283

a victory.' The answer to this is, that the author, whoever he may
be, does no such thing. The king, being within earshot of the
battle (' Alarum within '), meets a ' bleeding captain ' who is being
borne from the field ; and this personage does not bring news of a
victory ; he expressly states that the fight stood doubtful. "Where
is the absurdity ] It is Ross, who subsequently brings the good
tidings.

" On p. ix they say there is a ' strong general likeness between
the witches of the two dramas' (The Witch and Macbeth). This
perhaps is a matter of opinion ; but see Lamb's remarks on the
f essential difference ' between them. Specimens of Eng. Dram., p.
174."

Lastly, as to the Hecate speeches, I doubt whether Messrs Clark
and Wright compard them carefully with all Shakspere's other inci
dental 4-beat work, or they'd have seen, I think, that their remark —

" If the fifth scene of Act III. had occurred in a drama not
attributed to Shakespeare, no one would have discovered in it any
trace of Shakespeare's manner,"

would apply to some other bits of his genuine work, like the two
inscriptions in the caskets in The Merchant of Venice, p. 171, 172,
Booth &c. : —

All that glisters is not gold.

Often haue you heard that told ;

Many a man his life hath sold,

But my out side to behold ;

Guilded [tombs] doe wormes infold.

Had you beene as wise as bold,

Yong in limbs, in iudgement old,

Your answere had not beene inscrold,

Fare you well, your suite is cold. — II. viii. 66 — 73

The fier seauen times tried this ;

Seauen times tried that iud[g]ement is,

That did neuer choose amis :

Some there be that shadowes kisse ;

Such haue but a shadowes blisse :

There be fooles aliue I wis,

Siluer'd o're, and so was this :

Take what wife you will to bed,

I will euer be your head :

So be gone, you are sped. — II. ix. 63 — 72.

Miss MARSHALL :— I dispute Mr Furnivall's beats in Shakspere's
v>rose. Every writer and speaker has a peculiar beat of his own. The

284 DISCUSSION. MAY 22. MISS MARSHALL ON METRICAL PROSE.

man of culture, and who has mixed much in society in great cities,
has less of this beat-accent " provincialism " in tone, than the solitary
student, or the man of one place.

Monotony of tone and accent is the feature of conversation in
aristocratic London circles " with their voices low ; with fashion, not
with feeling, softly freighted." What I understand Mr Furnivall to
call rhythmical prose, I claim as pure prose with its purely English
rhythm. And that which Mr Furnivall divided by three beats and
calls Shaksperian, I call English prose : and this three-beat time is
one of the sets of " short lengths into which it can be cut" (as Mr
Taylor observed), and is not peculiar to Shakspere, but is found
in writers' prose at and after his time, and in the commonest of our
daily conversations.

What is Shakspere' s beat I dare hardly venture to say ; it is so
singularly difficult to characterise, and so subtle. That listening
face of his belongs to a man who would examine and even uncon
sciously adopt the voice and accent of those around him. A cultured
and imitative man will constantly vary his beat, and almost cease to
possess a peculiar one, or have one difficult to characterise. His beat
will vary even as his sympathies and moods. Notice this in the
Porter with his " cut lengths " of English prose soliloquy ; and how
different the tone and beat and rhythm are in his answer to
Macduff.

Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, King James I. — listened (if I may use
the word) to each other's beat ; and there are lines in each which
either might claim as belonging to his imitative self. I express my-
self badly, and in haste. I only want to say, that all English prose
is very rhythmical, and that this is the soul or song of our language,
and as much its own, as the fall of the voice, down with us, and
its rising with the French, is peculiar to each language. As to
Volumnia's speech, I was quite startled at Mr Furnivall's making it
dance and plunge and scamper into the three beats.

285

VI.

ON CERTAIN PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE

OF WHICH PORTIONS WERE WRITTEN AT DIFFERENT PERIODS OF
HIS LIFE.

IN THREE PARTS.

PART I. ALL'S WELL THAT EXDS WELL.

„ II. TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA AND TWELFTH NIGHT.
„ III. TEOYLUS AND CRESSIDA.

BY F. G. FLEAY, M.A.
(Read at the Society's Sixth Meeting, June 12, 1874 ; and afterwards revised.}

PART I. ON ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

WHETHER this be the same play as Love's Labour's Won is
doubtful : that it has a better title to be considered so than any
other extant play of Shakspere is certain, and has been abundantly
shown by others. I confess that I feel little interest in the question,
as it cannot from any data at present in our possession be settled
satisfactorily. All that we are here concerned witli is the demon
strable fact that it contains portions written at a much earlier date
than the completed work. At the time of its completion Shakspere
had introduced the free manner of his third period — that of the
Tragedies : was using many Alexandrines and short lines : was in
dulging freely in double endings ; and in the greater part of this play
was comparatively sparing in the use of rhymes. There are however
portions of the play which are quite in his earliest style : i. e. in the
continuous rhyming manner of Love's Labour's Lost, and in a few
instances we find also stanzas and alternate rhymes. These parts are
indubitably of a much less matured time : and indicate that the

286 vi. i. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.-

play is founded on an earlier draft. I now proceed to give a list of
these portions.

I. Act i. Sc. 1, last 14 lines in rhyme, forming a speech of Helen's,
perfectly appropriate to her position and feeling at the moment, but
in no way connected with or necessitated by the context.

II. Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 134 — 142; an eight-line stanza, spoken by
the Countess ; pure youthful poetry, not dramatic ; not required in
the scene or connected with the context.

III. Act ii. Sc. 1, 1. 132 — end; 71 lines in continuous rhyme,
quite different in general tone from the rest of the play, but forming
an essential part of the action.

IV. Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 78 — 111, contains 20 lines in rhyme exactly
like III., with some prose bits of Lafeu's introduced at a later date in
the completed play.

V. Same scene, 1. 131 — 151, in rhyme; 20 lines exactly of same
character as the preceding.

VI. Act iii. Sc. 4. Helen's letter in form of sonnet. This
sort of composition does not quite die out till the end of Shakspere's
second period, but it is very rare in that period and never appears
in the third : I assign this therefore to the early play.

VII. Act iv. Sc. 3. The same remarks apply to Parolles' letter.

VIII. Act v. Sc. 3, 1. 60 — 72, a rhyming passage of the same
character as III. IV. V. So lines 291—204 ; 301—304 ; 314—319 ;
325 — 340, indicate by frequent rhymes that they are debris of former
play used in the rebuilding.

To my mind this metrical evidence of itself is conclusive : but if
any one doubts let him read the passages tabulated above and notice
the total difference of manner and feeling in them from the rest of
the play ; the way in which the sense is concluded in each couplet,
often, in each line ; the grammatical structure of the sentences ; and
I think that his poetic feeling will convince him if his judgment on
the evidence do not.

I need only notice further that, of the above passages, I. II. VI.
VII. are clearly poetic bits retained in the complete play for the sake
of their poetic worth; III. IV. V. VIII., the dramatic bits are almost
entirely from the speeches of Helen and the king ; whose characters

VI. 2. THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 287

appear to have been more completely conceived in the original play
than the minor personages, and to have required less alteration.

There are no doubt many other boulders from the old strata
imbedded in the later deposits, e. g. the end of Act iv. So. 2, &c. ;
but only in a special consideration of this play would it be possible
to trace out every line of this character. Enough has, I hope, been
given to show the truth of our main proposition, and I now leave the
further prosecution of the question to those who are investigating
the problem, What was the original form of Love's Labour's Won ?

F. G FLEAY.,

PAET II. ON THE DATE AND COMPOSITION OF THE
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, AND TWELFTH NIGHT.

THIS is a most difficult and complex problem ; it involves minor
questions of many kinds ; of metre, of external evidence, of sesthetics,
of dramatic method, of development of character : we must first set
forth our evidence in detail, and then gather it together as we may.
Now as to The T. G. (I shall have to use these words so often that I
must often use this abbreviated form), there has always been (with
some) great doubt as to its authenticity; and those who have believed
it to be S.hakspere's have differed most widely as to its date of com
position. The only thing that all critics have agreed in has been that
there is something in this play that is different from any other of our
author's. I give a few extracts to show this.

" This is little more than the first outline of a comedy loosely
sketched in. It is the story of a novel dramatized with very little
labour or pretension ; yet there are passages of high poetical spirit,"
&c. — Hazliit.

" It is observable (I know not from what cause), that the style of
this comedy is less figurative and more natural and unaffected than
the greater part of this author's, though supposed to be one of the first
he wrote." — Pope.

" It was probably the first English comedy in which characters
are drawn from social life at once ideal and true." — Hallam.

TRANSACTIONS, 19

288 VI. 2. THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

Sclileyel says its painting is superficial, and that Julia is a light
sketch of Viola and Imogen.

An article in the Edinburgh Review, 1840 (author unknown to
me) agrees almost verbally with Hdllam.

"This passage (V. iv. 178) either hath been much sophisticated
or is one great proof that the main parts of this play did not proceed
from Shakspere ; for it is impossible he could make Valentine act and
speak so much out of character, or give to Sylvia so unnatural a
behaviour, as to take no notice of this strange concession if it had been
made." — Hanmer.

Dr Abbott has pointed out to me the great number of idioms and
uses of words in the last scene that are unknown elsewhere in Shak-
spere.

Mr JR. Simpson has shown that the number of " once-used " words
in this play is exceptionally small. (Note, he does not use the term
" once-used " in the same sense as I do ; but that matters not for the
present argument. I am only showing here that the play is an
exceptional one.)

Then, again, as to its date of composition ; the modern opinion
is that it was one of the earliest of Shakspere's plays. This opinion is
grounded on its inferiority, and is held by Delius and others of less
note. I have noticed that most critics who hold this view hold also
that Titus Andronicus and Henry VI. are early works of Shakspere's.
I confess that I cannot understand The T. G. and Andronicus being
written by one man at one period of his life : but to return.

Bernard Drake, who in my opinion is the soundest of all the
critics as far as external evidence is concerned, assigns a later date to
the play (between Shakspere's first and second periods), 1595. "With
this, Chalmers, the next best authority on this point, agrees ; and the
external evidence certainly is in their favour as far as it goes.

It will be seen from these opinions, which might easily have been
doubled in number, how various and conflicting are the views that
have been held on this play, and I think it will be easier for the
reader to follow my attempt to solve the difficulty if we have some
definite theory to hold to, as a clue in the labyrinth. I therefore at
once give a sketch of my own.

VI. 2. THE TWO GENTLEMEN ~OF VERONA. 289

I believe that the first two acts "were written by Shakspere be
tween 1593 and 1594 ; that, about the same date he began other plays,
Troylus and Twelfth Night, which he also left unfinished ; but that
The T. G. was the first written of these three ; that it differed from
the other two in being finisht about 1595 ; that he was not satisfied
with the way in which the completion was effected, and kept the
others by him, finishing Twelfth Night in 1601-2, and Troijlus about
1607. We will then first of all examine what indications there are
of a second date.

1. In II T. i. 81, and Y. iv. 129, we have Verona where Milan is
required by the context. This is not a slip of the pen, as Milan is
contrary to the metre.

2. In the first two acts we hear only of the Emperor's court as
Valentine's residence ; never of the Duke's ; in the last two only of
the Duke's, never of the Emperor's. It is true that in V. iv. 141,
" empress' love " is mentioned, but only as a general expression. It
may have been repeated from II. iv. 76, It is strange that in Act
III. neither word (duke or emperor} occurs. So the terms of address
worthy prince, worthy lord, your grace, gracious lord (proper form for
the duke") are confined to the last three acts.

3. An Eglamour, quite a different personage from Eglamour in
Act V., has already been mentioned in I. ii. 9.

4. The disappearance of Lucetta at the end of the second act is not
artistic.

5. If any one will try the experiment as I nave done, of reading
this play aloud to an intelligent hearer who is previously unacquainted
with it, he will find that the interest. of both reader and hearer flags
at the end of Act II. ; in fact, except Launce's description of his dog's
behaviour in IV. iv., there is hardly a bit above average work in
the last three acts.

6. There are hints in the early acts that family opposition to the
match between Proteus and Julia was to be lookt for : Julia's father
is mentioned in I. ii., and Proteus' father introduced in I. iii. (Yet
Julia has lands in her own right at end of II. vii.) We never hear
of either of these fathers again.1

1 See Postscript for reason of my change of opinion since the first issue of
this paper.

290 VI. 2. THE Tiro GENTLEMEN OF. VERONA, AND TWELFTH NIGHT.

I now pass on to the consideration of the origin of the play.
Karl Simrock says that The T. G. and What you will are taken from
the same novel of Bandello : Apollonius and Sylla. There is, how
ever, a story, The Shepherdess Felismena, in the Diana of Monte-
mayor, from which a far larger part of The T. G. is taken. I learn
from Halliwell that the Diana was translated by Bartholomew Young
in 1582-3, by T. Wilson in 1595-6, and parts by Edward Paston
and Sir Philip Sidney. Young's translation only was published in
1598. It is, however, certain that whether from the translation or
the original, this story as well as the first was used for both plays,
for The T. G. and Twelfth Night also. This has an important
ultimate bearing on my argument, and I must give some detail.
The stories of the early plays of Shakspere, The Midsummer Nighfs
Dream, Comedy of Errors, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, and
The T. G. are all enwoven with each other, and have yet not been
sufficiently disentangled by any critic so as to assign their origin in a
precise and clear manner. I hope to contribute my portion to this
work hereafter.

But our present business is with two of these plays only. From
Felismena the main part of The T. G. is taken : but the denotement
is from Apollonius and Sylla. In Felismena Celia, who corresponds
to Silvia in our play, dies of disappointed love : in Apollonius the
lovers are paired off happily. On the other hand, in Twelfth Night
the main story is from Apollonius and Sylla, but the opening of the
story of Felism,ena contributes an essential ingredient to the plot of
the play : Felix and Felismena are twin brother and sister,, marvel
lously alike (compare Twelfth Night, V. i. 230, " An apple cleft in
two is not more twin than these two creatures," and II. i, " he left
behind him myself and a sister, both born in an hour"). Simrock
agrees with me in this argument ; I regard it therefore as certain that
Tlie T. G. is taken partly from each of the two novels above-named.
This being so, we have a prima facie case for examining Twelfth
Night, as to the love story in it, to see if it accords in date of com
position with that of The T. G. For in many known instances we find
that Shakspere worked for some time continuously from one book at
various periods of his life. Thus in successive years he produced

VI. 2. THE DATE OF THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 291

Timon, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, all from Plutarch. In
like manner he wrote his historical plays, Rich. II., John, Hen. IV.,
Hen. V., from Holinshed successively, and Lear, Macbeth, Cymbeline,
in successive years from another part of the same work. So I refer
Midsummer Night's Dream, and the Troylus story in Troylus and
Cressida, both derived from Chaucer, to the same period. In any
case, it is a priori probable that two plays derived from the same
sources would be written about the same time.

These considerations as to the origin of these plays bring us to
the examination of the date of the production of The Two Gent.
But before giving particulars, I wish once for all to notice the
utter break-down of the argument of imperfection or premature
incompleteness as applied to establish the date of any work.
It has never to my knowledge been successful in any such de
termination in a doubtful case : and it has continually had to be
given up. It broke down in the case of Chaucer ; it broke down
for Eschylus ; and it has broken down over and over again for Shak-
spere : witness the instances of Pericles, Andronicus, The Shrew,
which are now almost universally surrendered, and of Twelfth Night,
which was disproved by external evidence. In this opinion, how
ever unpopular it may be with one class of critics at the present
time, I am supported by all the sounder and more weighty ones.
" Long ago was it observed by Dr Johnson," says Steevens, " that
from mere inequality in works of imagination nothing could with
exactness be inferred."

Drake's arguments for the date of The T. G. are these :
1. Hero and Leander are alluded to in the first scene : an allusion
probably taken from Maiiow's imitation of Musasus published in
1593 ; I add to Drake's argument that similar allusions to this story
occur in Romeo and Juliet (1593 certainly), in Much Ado about
Nothing (1600), in As You Like It (1599), in the Shakspere part of
Edward III. (1594-5), but not in any play anterior to 1593.

(2) I. iii. " Some to discover islands far away." This probably
alludes to the voyages of Sir Humphry Gilbert in 1594, and of Sir
"W. Raleigh in 1595, which were strictly voyages of discovery.

(3) II. i. "Like one that had the pestilence." The pestilence

292 VI. 2. THE DATE OF THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

was in London in 1593, and Shakspere was in London at that time.

(4) I. iii. " Some of the wars." Alludes probably to war with
France : the Spaniards also were expected to invade England
in 1595.

(5) " Thou art Merops' son," III. i. In the Troublesome raigne
of King John, printed in 1591, Merops is also alluded to, and
Shakspere, we know, read that play and studied it, probably about
1595, for his own King John came out about 1596. These ex
ternal evidences may not be very weighty, but at any rate they all
point in one direction, and there is not a tittle of evidence of this
kind for an earlier date.

Let us examine the internal evidence. This must be carefully
separated for the two different parts of the play. First for the
Shakspere parts ; Acts I. II.

(1) I cannot in this part find any of that weakness and inferiority
which has led to the assignment of an earlier date ; it is sketchy and
unfinished, but the general style is as near the Merchant of Venice
as possible on the one hand, and to Romeo and Juliet on the other :
not to mention other plays of nearly the same date as itself. What
sign of inferiority is there in

0 how this Spring of Love resembleth

The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,

And by and by a cloud takes all away.

So Launce and his dog are not far inferior to Launcelot Gobbo.
But there is no use in dwelling on this : whatever may be said to
the contrary, there is as yet no test of excellence agreed on : each
must judge for himself as to that at present, however definite our
tests of style may be, and as I contend they are.

(2) The subject of the play brings it in direct connection with the
Merchant of Venice. I know the inevitable joke of " Shakspere's
twins " will be brought against me : but a jest is no argument : and
in these two plays and these only the leading idea is that of friend
ship. The faithless friend Proteus is contrasted with Antonio, as the
faithless .Cressid is with Juliet. I am delighted to find that K. Sim-

VI. 2. THE DATE OP THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 293

rock has recognized the fact that this play belongs to the cycle of
romance, turning on friendship as its main object, and Halliwell
says, " The tale of The Two Gentlemen of Verona is evidently based
on Love and Friendship; the latter being the predominating in
fluence." Compare Amis and Amiloun. The same high authority
has suggested that additions, not Shakspere's, have been made to
this play.

(3) The arrangement of the characters brings the play close to
the Merchant of Venice. !N"ot only is Antonio contrasted with
Proteus, and does Valentine correspond to Bassanio from the nature
of the tale itself, but the added characters, the inventions of Shak-
spere, correspond : Launce to Launcelot : Lucetta to Nerissa : there
is nothing like these types in the preceding plays. It must also be
recollected that these types were absolutely new to the stage at that
time ; and that the sketchiness of Launce and Lucetta as compared
with Launcelot and Nerissa is fully accounted for, if my theory be
true — that Shakspere left this play unfinished for a time.

Moreover, in the early part of this play, there are points that
connect it, I think, unmistakably with the transition time from the
first to the second period : look at this peculiarity in the metre for
instance. In Act I. Sc. ii., we have a conversation in rhymeless
lines of six syllables. Thus :

Jul. I would I knew his mind.
Luc. Peruse this paper madam.
Jul. To Julia ? Say, from whom !
Luc. That the contents will show.
Jul. Say, say, who gave it thee ?

To match this we must turn to Richard III., which is unques
tionably of the beginning of the second period. (Act I. Sc. ii.)

Anne. I would I knew thy heart.
Glou. 'Tis figured in my tongue.
Anne. I fear me both are false.
Glou. Then never man was true.
Anne. Well, well, put up your sword.
Glou. Say, then, my peace is made !

294 VI. 2. THE DATE OF THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

Anne. That shall you know hereafter,

Glou. But shall I live in hope 1

Anne. All men, I hope, live so.

Glou. Vouchsafe to wear this ring !

Anne. To take is not to give.

Any one who has traced Shakspere's manner of work, and the
development of his metre, would on these passages alone be confident
that these plays were produced at the same time, or nearly so. There
is a similar passage in Love's Labor's Lost, but in rhyme, which
changes the whole tone of the thing ; and a similar arrangement of
pause in a passage in the spurious part of Timon, but in a continuous
speech, where Shakspere would not at any period have allowed it
for an instant.

There are also similarities of language between Acts I. and II. of
The Two Gent, and Rich. III.

Compare —

Speed. Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with you.
Pro. Why, sir, how do I bear with you ?
Speed. Marry, sir : the letter very orderly.

Two Gent., I. i. 126.
With—

Prince. Uncle, your grace knows how to bear with him.
YorJt. You mean to bear me, not to bear with me.
Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me.
Because that I am little like an ape
He thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.

Rich. III., II. i. 126.

Pro. Come, come : open the matter in brief: what said she.
Speed. Open your purse, that the matter and the money may
both be delivered. — Two Gent., I. i. 136.

1 Murd. Where is thy conscience now 1

2 Murd. In the Duke of Gloster's purse.

1 Murd. So when he opens his purse to give us our reward, thy

conscience flies out. — Rich. III., I. iv. 130.
Luc. And mar the concord with too harsh a descant.

Two Gent., I. ii. 94.

VI. 2. THE DATE OP THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 295

Glos. And descant on mine own deformity.

Rich. III., I. i. 27.
Buck. For on that ground I'll build a holy descant.

Rich. III., III. vii. 49.

The word ' descant ' occurs nowhere else in Shakspere. Compare
also —

Luc. Madam, it will not lie where it concerns
Unless it have a false interpreter. — Two Gent., I. ii. 78.

Per. Fie, what a question's that

If thou wert near a lewd interpreter. — Mercht of V. III. iv. 79.
Pro. I will be thy leadsman, Valentine. — Two Gent., I. i. 18.
Scrope. Thy very leadsmen, &c. — Rich. II. , III. ii. 116.
The word does not occur elsewhere.

Compare also the four lines previously quoted with
Men judge by the complexion of the sky,

The state and inclination of the day :
So may you by my dark and heavy eye.
My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.

Rich. II., III. ii. 193.

Yery like in cadence, but decidedly inferior, and I think a little
earlier.

Ant. Whereon this month I have been hammering.

Two Gent., I. iii. 18.

Rich. Yet, I'll hammer it out.— Rich. II., Y. v. 5.
Not used elsewhere in this way.

Like a schoolboy that has lost his A B C. — T. G., II. i. 23.
Then comes answer like an A B C book. — King John, I. i.
And then I'll rest, as after much turmoil,
A blessed soul doth in Elysium. — Two Gent., II. vii. 26.
My brother he is in Elysium. — Twelfth Night, I. ii. _

Only used once besides in Henry V. The argument from these
similarities of language is by no means that any one of these plays is
before or after another : but that they must in all probability have
been produced about the same time : by like reasoning we may
expect to find similarities with Romeo and Juliet. Thus compare —

296 VI. 2. THE DATE OF THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

And seal the bargain with a holy lass. — Two Gent., II. ii. 7.
Seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain.

Rom. and Jul., V. iii. 114.

If the river were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears : if the
wind were down, I could drive the boat with my sighs.

Two Gent., II. iii. 57.
Thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
Do ebb and flow with tears : the bark thy body is
Sailing in this salt flood : the winds thy sighs.

Rom. and Jul., III. v. 134.

This last passage is exactly in the style of Rich. II. (the con
ceited style), which reaches its highest development in these two
plays : but it gradually dropped afterward. The comparative few
ness of these conceits is a strong argument for the later date of
The Two Gent. Acts I. II. I might mention also other matters of
similarity between these plays ; but there is no use in multiplying
instances that can be so easily supplied by the reader for himself.

Next, in the later part there are many parallels with preceding
work.

a. III. 1. 68. No, trust me, she is peevish, sullen, froward,
Proud, disobedient, sullen, lacking duty, &c.
is very like —

Rom. and Juliet, III. v. 152. Mistress minion, you

Thank me no thanking, nor proud me no proud?, &c.
and 161. Hang the young baggage : disobedient wretch, &c.
in fact like the whole scene.

&. The allusion to Hero has been noticed above.

c. III. i. 124. Love is like a child

That longs for every thing that he can come by.

Compare Rom. and Jul., II. iv. 95. This drivelling love is like
a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in
a hole.

d. III. i. 152. Phaethon. Also alluded to in Rich. II., and
Rom. and Jut, not in any later play.

VI. 2. THE DATE OF THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 297

e. III. i. 1 78. Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale.

•An evident reminiscence. Valentine had not been by Silvia in the
night, and wouldn't have said this had it not been that the cele
brated scene in Romeo and Juliet (III. v.) had been fresh in the
memory of the audience.

/. III. ii. 85. " Deploring dump." Compare the " doleful
dumps" of Rom. and JuL, IV. iv.

g. The banishment of Valentine from Milan, and his going near
to Mantua, is a mere repetition of that of Eomeo from Verona and
his going to Mantua : it is in repetition or reminiscence that we find
an explanation of the erroneous use of Verona for Milan, in Act III.
Sc. i., and Act V. Sc. iv. Compare especially, III. i. 170 — 187
with Rom. and Jul., III. iii. 1 — 50.

Ji. Note. The pronunciation " banished," very frequent in
Romeo, but not in later plays, not even in Richard II. , is repeated
here.

i. Silvia's excuse for her absence, IV. iii. 43, that she is going
to the Friar's cell for confession, is from Romeo and Juliet, III. v. 232.

7c. The giving the ring to Silvia, IV. iv. 136, is a reminiscence of
Twelfth Night, I. v. 33.

Z. V. iv. 47. For whose dear sake thou then didst rend thy

faith

Into a thousand oaths, and all those oaths
Descended into perjury to love me,

compare Midsummer Night's Dream, I. i. 243 :

He hailed down oaths that he was only mine.
The next lines,

And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt
So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.

compare with III. ii. 9 :

A little time will melt her frozen thoughts.
m. There are many peculiar words in this part of the play, and

still more peculiar usages of words, such as 'obdurate, direction-

298 VI. 2. THE TWO PLOTS IN TWELFTH NIGHT.

giver, plural, the Eternal,' &c. ; but Dr Abbott, who first pointed
out many of these to me, is the proper person to treat of them. I
leave out all consideration of them, in the hope that he will give
us a paper on the subject.

n. " Friar Laurence," in V. ii. 32, is certainly a slip for " Patrick,"
and a distinct reminiscence of Romeo and Juliet. The duke would
not want two friars to give him intelligence. Note, Silvia " was not
at Patrick's cell/' yet it seems to be there that she meets Eglamourin
the preceding scene.

o. The name Sebastian assumed by Julia, is a reminiscence of
Twelfth Night (early part).

p. The scene with the host is from Love's Labour's Won, almost
a literal repetition ; as Proteus in the latter part of the play is a
palpable imitation of Bertram.

Now let us pass to the other play. In order to examine into the
question of the date of Twelfth Night, it is first necessary to con
sider the structure of the plot. There are in it, as in Troylus and
Cressida, two distinct plots. In Shakspere's usual practice, where
there are two plots in a play, as in Lear, they are, even when derived
from distinct sources, so interwoven, that it is impossible to disen
tangle one of them and present it separately. But this is not the
case in the two plays mentioned above. Just as the story of Troylus'
love is separable from that of Ajax's pride and Achilles' wrath, so is
the story of Viola, the Duke, and Olivia, separable from that of
Malvolio, Sir Toby, and Maria. Wherever this is the case, one of
three conclusions must be drawn. Either the play has been written
at two periods (as I think is the case here) ; or by two authors, which
is not the case here ; or it is an inferior piece of work, which is also
not the case here. The characters that belong to what I consider
the early part of the play, are, the Duke, Sebastian, Antonio, Viola,
Olivia, Curio, Valentine, and the Captain. The part of the play in
which they enter is I. i. ii. iv. v. (part) ; II. i. ii. iv. ; III. i. (part),
iii. iv. (part) ; IV. i. (part), iii. ; V. i. (part). This can be cut out
so as to make a play of itself entirely independent of the other cha
racters, which is the infallible sign of priority of composition.

This part of the play is full of the young, fresh, clear poetry of

VI. 2. THE DOUBLE DATE OF TWELFTH XIGIIT. 299

Shakspere's early time, the time of Midsummer Night's Dream and
Romeo and Juliet. The other part is that of the man of the world, the
satirist ; kindly and good-humoured, but still the satirist. All this latter
part is added by Shakspere himself; it is from the same mint as FalstafF
and his companions, the same as Pistol and Parolles. For the play
of AlTs Well That Ends Well. in. like manner divides into two parts.
The part taken from the novel is early, and perhaps contains in it all
that remains of Love' s Labour' s Won. The characters of the Countess,
Parolles, and the Clown, are Shakspere's additions; like Sir Toby
Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Fabian, Maria, Feste, and Malvolio ;
and as I have stated in the examination of that play, they are
additions of a later time. In both these plays, too, the early part has
been revised ; and All's Well has been nearly rewritten, so that the
old play has been broken up, and only pieces of it can be recognized
as boulders embedded in the later strata ; in Twelfth Night, the
stratification has not been disturbed; only the surface has been
denuded and scratched a little, and some new material has been
deposited here and there.

The first indication I found of this double date is in II. iv. :

Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,
That old and antique song, &c.
Come, but one verse.

where Yiola was evidently intended to be the singer : (compare I.

ii. 56 :

Thou shalt present me as a eunuch to him :
It may be worth thy pains : for I can sing
And speaJc to him in many sorts of m,usic.}

This is from the first draft ; but in the revised play Curio makes
the strange answer (in prose, as all, or nearly all, the latter work is
in this drama), "He is not here, that should sing it ; " and the Duke
says, "Who was if?" forgetting the singer he had heard the night
before. He afterwards points out the special character of the song
(1. 44 — 48) to Cesario, who had also heard it, and who had just
been askt to sing it : allthis, I thought could not have been written
at one time

300 VI. 2. FIRST PERIOD OF UNFINISIIT PLAYS.

But external proof as to the date of this play \ve unfortunately
have none, except as to its final completion and production before
1602 : and its character in style is not pronounced enough to fix the
date of any portion. I feel certain myself that the prose part is of
the same time as As You Like It and Mitch Ado about Nothing : and
that the verse part is a revision of earlier work done quite at the
beginning of the second period : but for this I rely rather on the
many subtle undefinable links between it and the other plays of that
date than on such broad facts as we have here room for. The com
munity of origin with The Two Gent, is, however, a strong ground for
presumption, and we shall find the metrical evidence gives important
confirmation.

We have next to assign some plausible theory why just at
this period, 1593-4, Shakspere should have written nothing but
unfinished fragments of plays if my theory be true, and that too
in so many instances : Troylus and Cressida, The Two Gentlemen,
Twelfth Night^ being all begun and left unfinished at this date, just
at the end of his first period, after which a great and important
change takes place in his style. Exactly the same thing takes place
at the end of his third period, when he begins and leaves unfinished
the plays of Pericles and Timon ; at the end of his fourth period,
when he begins and leaves unfinished The Two Noble Kinsmen ; at
the end of his fifth period, Henry VIII. At the end of his second
period it is true that we have not a like phenomenon, no plays
having been begun and left unfinished at that time ; but, on the other
hand, the plays of Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, and All's
Well that Ends Well were either revised or completed in 1601-2.

There are periods in all organic growth when secretion is lessened
for a time, and all the forces of the organism are busy in assimilation :
there are also periods when assimilation ceases for a time, and all the
forces are occupied in laying up new stores for future development.
Such periods I hold these dividing epochs in Shakspere's style to
have been. From his external life we are, as it seems to me, able
to connect these epochs with some of those great joys and sorrows
which leave their permanent marks on men for good or evil. Hallam
has noticed the cynical turn of his mind during his third period :

VI. 2, FIRST PERIOD OF UNPINISHT PLAYS. 301

others have conjectured that the plays of the fourth period were
produced in test and retirement : and I think in passing from the
first to the second period we may see a change from the dreams of
youth to the sad realities of the world. The sorrows of Love's Labour's
Lost, Midsummer's Night's Dream, and The Comedy of Errors are
unreal, and excite no deep feeling in us : even Romeo and Juliet and
Richard II. , though they move our pity, do so only because in them
passion is disappointed or calamity rashly incurred. We are sorry
for the events, and wish they had been otherwise : but with the
actors in the dramas we have no deep individual sympathy
such as we feel at the very beginning of the second period
with the passionate a.gony of Constance, the Christian resigna
tion of Antonio, or the logical though extreme vengeance of
Shylock. We have passed from the youthful land of dreams, from
the youthful impulses of passion, from the youthful view of history
as a spectacle or a romance, to a world in which men and women
have duties to perform and tasks to accomplish. Borneo and Juliet
are severed by remorseless fate, but Portia and Bassanio by the
stern call of duty : Richard II. suffers for making a mistake in
banishing Bolingbroke, but John for his crimes towards his nephew
and his country. Between these periods come the unfinished plays
in which the first unfaithfulness in friendship (Proteus), the first
infidelity in woman (Cressida), the first uncomplaining submission
to unknown and therefore unrequited love (Viola), are to be found
in Shakspere's plays. And just at this period there are in his out
ward life enough of sorrows yet visible to us to account for this. In
1593 Marlowe, with whom he had certainly been closely connected
in writing (how closely I hope to show in my paper on Henri/ VI.),
was taken away by death; in 1595 Hamnet, his only son, was most
likely sickening, to die in the early part of the next year. Hence
forth his method of work changed, his poetry is mingled with prose
to an extent previously unknown : the jingle of rhyme is for the
most part abandoned for the sterner cadence of a rhymeless rhythm :
a change of style is initiated which ceast not till the end of work
came with the night in which no man can work. During tliis anxious
time no wonder that he could finish nothing. He could publish the

302 VI. 2. RYME-TEST APPLIED TO THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

already finished Lucreece ; but the realities of life would allow no
completeness to the fevered incoherent creations of the fancy. After
his son had been taken away from him, then he could buckle himself
to the work before him, and do it with his might. It may be that
without this sorrow we should have had no Cordelia.

In the same way I connect the ends of his second and third
periods with the deaths of his father and of his youngest brother
Edmund, the actor.

But if I say all that I wish to say on this subject this paper will
be interminable. I must come to the metrical tests and see if they
confirm or refute my theory. I much regret that in these early
plays we have to depend on the rhyme-test almost alone : the weak-
ending test, by which I separated all Massinger's work from Flet
cher's, and which I have used for all the third, fourth, and fifth
periods for Shakspere, is inapplicable to his first two periods, and the
cesura-test is not yet worked out. I have no doubt that nearly all
the peculiarities of the secondary dramatists can ultimately be traced
to Shakspere, and their rank may almost be assigned by the peculi
arity of metre that each assimilated from his storehouse : that, for in
stance, Jonson's use of the extra-middle syllable at a pause, Fletcher's
double ending, and Massinger's weak ending were all adopted from
Shakspere's later time ; while Dekker's, Tourneur's, and Webster's
rhymes are all reproductions of his early system though in a com
paratively awkward and mistaken manner. Will some one volunteer
to count the cesuras 1 I have done one man's share of counting.

In the first two acts of The Two Gent., there are 696 lines of
verse : of these 36 are rhyme-lines, 8 alternate rhymes, and 18
doggrel. This gives a rhyme-ratio of 1 in 11. In the other acts
there are 907 verse-lines, 40 rhyme-lines, and 1 1 in the letter-stanza
in Act III. Sc. i. The rhyme-ratio is 1 in 19'8, little more than
one half the former. This is conclusive for the double date. But
note, also, there is not one doggrel line in the last three acts : this
would of itself be nearly sufficient proof: with the above, it is irre
sistible. I have also a strong suspicion that the first scene in Act
III. contains some earlier work wrought in with the second por
tion, which nowhere else has a continuous rhyming passage or a

VI. 2. 11ETRACTATIONS. 303

rhyme -stanza -or alternate rhymes. If this be so it will increase the
difference between the two parts ; but can in no case raise the rhyme-
ratio higher than 1 : 7, not nearly so high as that of the Comedy of
Errors or Richard II. or Romeo and Juliet. The metrical results
therefore confirm my theory in all respects. I should note also that
there are two distinct Alexandrines in Acts I. II. which, Avith the six-
syllable lines in groups pointed out above, distinctly fixes the period
of composition.

The part of Twelfth Night that contains the Viola story compre
hends nearly all the verse part : and as there is none of the Malvolio
and Aguecheek part in verse except 17 lines of Y. i. 280 — 323, we
may take the rhyme-ratio of the whole play (minus these 17 lines)
as 112 : 876 — 17 or 112 : 859, or 1 : 7 '5 as that required for our
purpose. If, as I think, the rhymes in The Two Gent. III. i. are
early the rhyme-ratio in the early part will be 1 : 7, and the Yiola
part of Twelfth Night will come next to it. But it is impossible in
these cases where an author has partly rewritten his early sketch, as
is clearly the case in these two plays, to ascertain what part of the
early work has been cancelled : and therefore we must not press the
rhyme-ratio too strictly. This will apply still more to Alls Well
That Ends Well. In Troyltis and Cressida, on the other hand, the
old work was almost untouched and we can draw more exact con
clusions. In the present plays I am quite content to find that the
results I arrived at from totally different reasoning are entirely con
firmed by the rhyme-test : and on all grounds alike I conclude that
The Two Gent. Acts I. II. and the original draft of the story of Viola
were made at the date of 1593-4.

P.S. The foregoing paper is greatly altered from its original state1
as far as regards the Two Gentlemen of Verona. I am glad to be
able to confirm my change of opinion by the example of Mr Halli-
well, who has also abandoned the hypothesis of a second author. Of

1 Mr Fleay has also authorized me to cancel Part I. in his original Paper,
' On the Additions made to Richard II. in the edition of 1598.' As the
earlier quarto contains the same passages before and after the Deposition-
scene as the 1598 quarto does, and these involve the instance of the Deposition-
scene, one cannot doubt that this scene was in the Play when first written —
F. J. F.

TRANSACTIONS. 20

304 VI. 2. RETRACTATIONS.

the many reasons I have for this change I need only notice the
principal.

1. Many passages which seemed to me at first to be imitations of
Shakspere (as a further study of the authors then writing has con
vinced me) are his own work done in a depressed and weary mood.
Mr Hales is right as to these parallels being by one author, though I

utirely differ from him as to the date of writing.

2. The argument as to the use of the words Duke and Emperor
was not sound : a similar confusion exists between Duke and Count
in Twelfth Night and between Duke and King in Love's Labour's
Lost : consequently difference of authorship cannot be inferred :
only of date.

3. Dr Abbott not having cared to print his part in the discussion
on this paper, I do not know what further instances of peculiar
words and usages he adduced ; I have however examined those he
pointed out to me as unshaksperian and find them to tell in the
other direction. For instance, he says " The Eternal " is not used as
the name of God. Perhaps not ; but " The Everlasting " is, in a
well-known passage in Hamlet.

4. I own with some shame that in this matter I assigned far too
great importance to aesthetic considerations, as to Valentine's and
Silvio's conduct. I ought to have been guided by the metrical
form ; which is conclusive for a different date of composition in
the different parts of the play, but certainly does not require a
difference of authorship ; though not inconsistent with it, if any
author could be found at that date to whom any part of this drama
could be assigned. The theory of " Six Shaksperes in the Eield "
will (I hope) soon be given up. At any rate I am prepared to show
that we have far greater evidence as to the authorship of many plays
at present quite obscure than has ever been previously supposed.

F. G. FLEAY.

PART III. ON THE COMPOSITION OF
TROYLUS AND CRESSIDA.

I HAVE endeavoured to show elsewhere that at certain periods in
Shakspere's career he began the composition of some of his plays

VI. 3. THE THREE PLOTS IN THOYLUS AND CRESSIDA. oUo

•which he left to be afterwards completed by himself or by others at
later epochs : In particular, that at the end of his first period, 1594-6,
he began the Two Gentlemen of Verona and Twelfth Night ; at the
end of his second period, 1601-2, he completed Twelfth Night,
altered the Taming of the Shrew from a complete play of Marlow's
(see my paper on Henry VI.), and probably rewrote All's Well That
Ends Well from one of his earliest plays, Love's Labour's Won ; at
the end of his third period, 1 606-7, he began Pericles and Timon ; at
the end of his fourth period, 1609, The Two Noble Kinsmen; and
at the end of his fifth period, 1612-3, Henry VIII., after The
Tempest and Winters Tale.

But this play of Troyltts and Cressida differs from all others of
which I have as yet published special analyses, in having been com
posed at three distinct periods: begun in 1594; continued shortly
after; finished in 1606-7, at about the same time that Cymbeline
was written, which is, in my first paper, placed too early, through a
blunder in my calculations which I have recently discovered. And
here I desire again to repeat that I by no means wish my inferences
as to any date to be regarded as final until each play has been
separately studied : my table is only a first approximation, which
will aid in obtaining a second and I hope a truer one, I also wish
that any use of exact dates may not be looked on as meant to serve
any further purposes than distinctness and brevity : thus, when I say
this play was begun in 1594, &c., what I mean is this, that it was
begun at the end of Shakspere's first period, as I arrange his plays ;
after Romeo and Juliet and before The Merchant of Venice ; that it
was continued a year or two later ; that it was finished after the
great Tragedies, and before the Eoman plays : but I by no means
pretend that any play, or group of plays, may not be slipped up or
down in the scale a year or two, provided the relative order be
retained.

This being premised, I proceed with the exposition of my theory
as to this play. I hold, then, that there are three plots interwoven,
each of which is distinct in manner of treatment, and was composed
at a different time from the other two. There is first the story of
Troylus and Cressida which was earliest written, on the basis of

306 VI. 3. THE THREE PLOTS IN TROYLUS AND CRESSIDA.

Chaucer's poem : next comes the story of the challenge of Hector to
Ajax, their combat, and the slaying of Hector by Achilles, on the
"basis of Caxton's Three Destructions of Troy : and finally, the story of
Ulysses' stratagem to induce Achilles to return to the battle-field by
setting up Ajax as his rival, which was written after the publication
of Chapman's Homer, from whom Thersites, a chief character in this
part, was taken. If this theory be true, the Troylus story ought to
split off tolerably clean from the other two, and unless in passages
interpolated at the same time as the after additions were made, not
to contain any allusions to them : the second story in like manner
should contain no allusions to the third ; but it may or may not to
the first. Let us examine the play as to its arrangements. The
passages containing the Troylus story are : —

Act Scene line

I. 1, 1-107. (Troylus and Pandarus.)

I. 2, 1-321. (Pandarus and Cressid.)

III. 1, 1-160. (Pandarus, Paris, and Helen.)

III. 2, all. (Pandarus, Troylus, and Cressid.)

III. 3, 1-33. (Calchas, Agamemnon.)

IV. 1, all. (^Eneas, Paris, Diomed.)

IV. 2, all. (Troylus, Cressid, Pandar, ^Eneas.)

IV. 3, all. (Paris, Troylus.)

IV. 4, 1-141. (Pandar, Cressid, Troylus, Diomed.)

IV. 5, 12-53. (Cressid, Diomed, Grecian generals.)

*V. 2, ? (Cressid, Diomed, Troylus, Ulysses.)

V. 3, 97-115. (Troylus, Pandar.)

In no part of this story is there the slightest overlapping of the
other stories, except in the asterised scene where Ulysses enters,
and in IV. v. 277-293 ; V. i. 89-93 ; V. iv. 20-24 ; V. v. 1-5 ;
V. vi. 1-11 ; which bits also involve Ulysses, Diomed, and Troylus.

We shall treat of these presently : but putting them aside for a
moment, I would ask any one who wishes to analyze the play to
examine this story by itself, and see whether he thinks it written in
Shakspere's best style. I will give the metrical evidence in tables
for all three parts at the end of this paper : but, apart from all
statistics, is there not something about such a passage as this quite

VI. 3. THE FIRST, OR ' TROYLUS ' PLOT, IN TROYLUS AND CEESSIDA. 307

inconsistent with the hitherto usually-received theory of the play
— that it belongs (except a doubtful passage or two at the end)
altogether to Shakspere's third or fourth period ]

Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love

What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we 1

Her bed is India, there she lies a pearl ;

Between our Ilium, and where she resides,

Let it be called the wild and wandering flood ;

Ourself the merchant ; and this sailing Pandar

Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark. — Act I. Sc. i.

Is it not written just in the same mode as,

In one little body

Thou counterfeitst a bark, a sea, a wind :
For still thy eyes which I may call the sea
Do ebb and flow with tears ; the bark thy body is
Sailing in this salt flood ; the winds, thy sighs, &c.

Romeo and Juliet, Act III. Sc. v. ?

or the passage in Rich. //., Act V. Sc. v., which is too well known
to need quoting at length, beginning,

For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock,
or,

her sunny locks

Hang on her temples like a golden fleec-e ;
Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand,
And many Jasons come in quest of her.

Merchant of Venice, Act I. Sc. ii.

This is not the style of the later plays ; nor is

Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile. — I. i. 38 ;

nor the prose of Pandarus' speeches : but I need not multiply
quotations, the book is in every one's hands.

For my own part, I cannot read this Troylus part without
being reminded in its conceits, its dirty jokes, the peculiar turn
of its comparisons, the flow of its metre, the unstayed youthful-

308 VI. 3. THE SECOND, OR ' HECTOR STORY, IN TROYLUS AND CRESSIDA.

ness of its ideas, and the sensuous passionateness of its love — of
the companion play of Romeo and Juliet. For whatever may be
thought of the other plays of Shakspere that I would class together
as twin-productions of his genius, I hold that nothing can be more
certain than that the two plays of Friendship which contain the
stories of faithful Antonio and faithless Proteus were meant as pend
ants to each other ; and that the two plays of youthful passion, with
the stories of " True and Faithful Juliet " and false and faithless
Cressid, were also meant as pendants. Try the experiment ; prepare
your ear by reading straight off a couple of Acts of Romeo and Juliet,
and then read this Troylus story without a word of the other parts of
the play, as far as IV. iv., and I confidently await the verdict.

But we must pass on to the second story, that of Hector. This
is contained in the following parts :

Act Scene line

I. 1, 108-119. (J^neas and Troylus.)

I. 3, 213-309. (Jllneas and Agamemnon.)

II. 2, all. (Priam, Hector, Troylus, Paris, Helenus,
Cassandra.)

III. 1, 161-172. (Paris, Helen.)

IV. 4, 142-150. (Paris, ^neas.)
IV. 5, 1-11. (Grecian Generals.)

IV. 5, 54-276. (Hector, ^Eneas, Greeks, &c.)

*V. 1, all. (except Thersites and Patroclus part.)

V. 3, 1-97. (Hector, Andromache, Cassandra, Priam,

Troylus.)

V. 5, 1 — end of play — (Troylus' last speech, &c.)
(But sc. 7, 8, 9, and perhaps epilogue, probably spurious.) 1

1 The spurious part of the last Act is probably debris from Dekker and
Chettle's Troylus fy Cressida, written in 1592, and reproduced in a revised form
as Agamemnon in 1599. If any one doubts that such an amalgamation of
plays by different authors could take place let him refer to " The tragedy of
Ccesar and Pompey " by Chapman, Act II. Scene i., which is clearly not a
piece of the play, but the remains of an old play of the same title acted in
1594 at the Rose. It alludes to the knack to know a knave, published in the
same year, 1594, and acted two years earlier. There are other instances of
this : I hope the French scene in Henry V. between Alice and Katherine is
one of them. At any rate, no play should be edited without careful consider
ation of all evidence obtainable as to other plays on the same subject.

VI. 3. THE SECOND, OR ' HECTOR ' STORY, IN TROYLUS AND CRESSIDA. 309

This part of the play, which, contains everything connected with
the war, with Hector's challenge to Ajax, with his combat with him,
with his final encounter with Achilles, and his death, was, in my
opinion, added to the early sketch of Troylus' loves (which was not
enough to make a five-act play), not long after the writing of the
first part.

The style of this second part is more advanced than the first :
but not so much so as many of the second-period plays. It reminds
tis most of the Merchant of Venice or John. It also in parts
has an echo of Mario w, just as we might expect, if I am right as
to its date of composition. See my paper on Henry VI.
For instance :

Is she worth keeping ? ivhy she is a pearl

Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships

And turned crown 'd Icings to merchants.

If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went,

As you must needs, for you all cried " Go, go : "

If you'll confess he brought some noble prize,

As you must needs, for you all clapt your hands :

And cried " inestimable," why do you now

The issue of your proper wisdoms rate 1 &c. — Act II. Sc. ii.

Compare with the first three of these lines Marlow, Faust,

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topiless towers of Ilium ?

I must also notice that, according to Theobald, the Margarelon
of V. v. and V. vii., with the Sagittary of Y. v., are derived from Cax-
ton's Three Destructions of Troy : according to Malone, the Knights,
IV. v. 158, are from the same source. All these references are from
the Hector story : which confirms my opinion that that is an in
tegral and separable part of the play. I have not seen the above-
named story-book, nor Lydgate's poem on this subject : had I had
an opportunity of doing so, I should probably have had something
to add to what I have here stated : as it is, I must be content at
present to give the evidence derivable from the materials at my
command. I cannot omit, however, one little confirmation of my

310 VI. 3. THE THIRD, OR ' GREEK ' STORY, IN TROYLUS AND CRESSIDA.

theory that lies on the surface. In I. 2, Hector goes to the field
and fights. In I. 3, after this, we find him " grown rusty in the
long-continued truce." Surely these passages were not written at
the same period.

Of course this Hector part will not read as complete in itself as
the Troylus story does, inasmuch as it had to be fitted on to it : it is,
however, wonderfully near completeness, taking all circumstances
into account.

The third story is contained in

Act Scene line

I. 3, 1-212. (Ulysses, Nestor, Agamemnon.)

I. 3, 310-392. (Ulysses, Nestor.)

IT. 1, all. (Ajax, Thersites, Achilles, Patroclus.)

II. 3, all. ( ditto ditto and Greek Generals.)

III. 3, 34-316. (Ulysses, Achilles, Thersites, Patroclus,

&c.)

IV. 5, 277-293. (Ulysses, Troylus.)

Y. 1, all. (Thersites and Patroclus.)

V. 2, all. ditto ditto.

V. 4, all. (Thersites, &c.)

In this part, and this only, we have the style of Shakspere's third-
fourth manner in metre ; in word-coining ; in metaphor ; in develop
ment of character. I need not dwell on this, it is the extreme palpa
bility of this fact that has caused all this play to be usually assigned
to the date of 1608, or thereabouts : what has not been seen is, that
these characters do not run through the whole play, but only this
Ajax and Thersites part. I must, however, say a few words on the
alterations Shakspere must have made, if he wrote this play in the
way I say he did.

It will have been noticed that I asterised some parts of the
Troylus story. This is the reason. These parts are in their present
shape evidently remodelled in the last revision. Ulysses* speeches
are clearly in the latest manner. The scene between Diomed and
Cressida, however, if Troylus, Ulysses, and Thersites are cut out, falls
into regular metre rather more than the scene as it stands does : and

VI. 3. THE THREE PLOTS IN TROYLUS AND CRESSIDA. 311

is in the earliest style. I think it is part of the first Troylus sketch :
I am sure that Cressida's rhymed soliloquy is. Eeaders of Chaucer
will remember, that Troylus in his version discovers Cressida's faith
lessness by finding a brooch in a cloak he wins from Diomed in battle.
I believe that Shakspere followed Chaucer, as his only authority,
in his first sketch, and so did not take Troylus to the Greek tents at
all : this scene being given between Diomed and Cressida only to
show that Troylus' suspicion from the brooch was a true one. But
finding afterwards how easily he could make him see instead of sus
pect by sending him with Hector to the Greek tents, he cut out the
fighting scene arid the brooch, and put in the additions to this scene.
So we explain all the difficulty under this head. The other asterised
bits are all of the third period, put in to match the new version of
this scene. There are other little links too minute to note here, which
I should point out in editing the play.

But there is one point noticed by the Cambridge Editors that so
strongly confirms my theory, that I must give it in full. It will be
seen from the tables given above that the Troylus story ends at Y. 3,
the Hector story at the end of the present play : while the final
additions as to Ajax, Ulysses, &c., are all inserted in the previously
existing parts, and do not reach to the end ; either as we have it now,
or as it existed in either of the two earlier stages. Now Shakspere
would not in all probability write even so incomplete a sketch as the
Troylus story without contriving an end for it and writing this end.
This is the practice of all great writers, as far as we can trace their
manner of work : and we find it exemplified in Twelfth Night, the
only other play of Shakspere composed in the same way as this one,
at two distinct periods : the end there is clearly of the early work.
We ought, therefore, to find some trace of the first ending of the
Troylus story, if anywhere, at the close of V. 3. Of course Shakspere
may have obliterated it, but if he has not, it can be only looked for
where the love story is closed. Now exactly at that point we read in
the Folio three lines,

Par. Why but hear you ?

Troy. Hence, brother lackey, ignomy and shame,
Pursue thy life and live aye with thy name ;

312 VI. 3, CANONS FOR THE USE OF METRICAL TESTS.

which three lines are evidently meant for the original end of the play ;
as they occur again just before Pandarus' final epilogue. The occur
rence of these lines in both these places cannot be explained by
supposing a second author for the last scenes : for V. 5, and V. 10,
which occur after the first insertions of them in V. 3, are un
doubtedly Shakspere's : although the piece from the entrance of
" one in sumptuous armour " (V. 6), to the end of V. 9, is of dubious
authenticity, and perhaps the Pandar epilogue. I do not, however,
discuss this question here. It is of more importance to our present
subject to see if the metrical tests will bear out our previous con
clusions. And before giving statistics, I must observe that the use
of these tests seems to be misunderstood even by those who have
used them as supporting their views ; or are using them to obtain
conclusions on disputed points. I lay down, therefore, some canons
of method relating to them.

I. No conclusion can be drawn from an insufficient number of
instances. This number varies with the test. A dozen instances of
weak-ending in a page of ordinary 8vo would stamp a play at once
as Massinger's : but to any conclusion drawn from less than 1000
lines as to number of rhymes or double- endings, I should attach
very little value.

II. Tables of ratios must not be used without considering the
positive amounts of the numbers from which the ratios are cal
culated : thus, in comparing The Tempest with Winter's Tale, the
ratios of rhymes to blank verse lines come out as 1 : 729 and 1 :
infinity respectively. This looks like an enormous difference, but it
means only that there is one rhyming couplet in The Tempest and
none in Winter^ Tale. No conclusion could be based on such a
ground. Again, in the Merry Wives of Windsor the addition of one
rhyme would alter the proportion from 1 : 22 to 1 : 20, so that if
any one unacquainted with Shakspere's metre were to count — •

Fear you not that ! Go, get us properties

And tricking for our fairies,

as a rhyme, he would displace the position of the play considerably
in the table. It is clear that in plays chiefly prose conclusions cannot
be drawn from these tests in cases where the numbers are close together.

VI. 3. CANONS FOR THE USE OF METRICAL TESTS. 313

III. Cases where tlie author adopts a manner or metre quite
contrary to his usual custom cannot be determined by them. Thus
Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess can no more be compared with his
other plays than Beaumont's Masque can with .his : nor can Ben
Jonson's Masques or even his Sad Shepherd be included in any
argument as to his general metrical peculiarities. Midsummer Night's
Dream, on the other hand, which is not different in any respect of
handling from Shakspere's other early plays, cannot be so excepted.

IV. No conclusion can be drawn from any peculiarity of style
that was consciously or deliberately adopted by an author, so far as
the chronology of his works is concerned : thus, no result could be
gathered from the number of lines with double- endings in Fletcher,
as he clearly from the very first chose this manner of style. That
he chose it is clear from its entire absence in the Faithful Shepherdess,
although never missing for a moment in the preceding plays, as far
us they are Fletcher's,

On the other hand, this kind of peculiarity is the most valuable
for determining authorship. Hence the extreme ease of separating
the Fletcher parts of Henry VIII. and The Two Nolle Kinsmen :
the Dekker or Tourneur parts of Timon, the Wilkins parts of
Pericles. Hence also the enormous difficulty of separating the
different authors in the three parts of Henry VI. That this pro
blem can be solved I hope to show ; but I say confidently that,
though I believe I have fully solved it, yet any attempt at solution
by metrical tests alone, as far as such methods are yet publisht, must
utterly fail. In fact, all the men after Shakspere (except, I think,
one of the greatest and least-read, Randolph) evidently adopted
deliberately what I may call a metrical humour : Fletcher, his
double-endings ; Massinger, his weak ones, and his full-complement
lines ; Dekker, his numerous rhymes scattered in the dialogue ;
Middleton, his triple endings, such as —

" As wild and merry as the heart of innocence"
(which must be carefully distinguish^ from Alexandrines) ; and so on
for the rest. But the earlier men, Marlow, Green, Peele, &c., who
formed the first blank- verse school, all wrote in the same hard,
inflexible monotone, that deterred Shakspere from at first giving up

314 VI. 3. CANONS FOR THE USE OP METRICAL TESTS.

rhyme, which he dropt only when, and in exact proportion as, his
blank verse became freer, less subject to such arbitrary rules as Put ten-
ham's, and consequently more dramatic. That he did this uncon
sciously I am certain : for whenever a piece of his old work was
good enough in other respects, he never altered it for metrical
reasons in his subsequent revises : hence the possibility of such a
paper as this present, in which we shall presently see that one can
recognize his early work by the glitter of the early rhymes.

This same principle compels us to exclude from calculations for
determining the date of Shakspere's plays, all such cases as the inner
play in Hamlet, the masque in the Tempest, the fairy scene in the
Merry Wives (which is really a recited play as much as the Hamlet
one), for in all these the different rhyming treatment was clearly-
adopted deliberately beforehand, in order to differentiate this part of
the work from the rest ; it did not grow up in the author's mind
spontaneously, while the actual writing was going on, as an emphatic
rhyme in the middle or even at the end of a scene did : it was a
preconceived limitation^ not an unforeseen development. Similar
remarks apply to Pistol's iambics : which are an essential part of his
original conception.

V. The test chosen must be suited to the special author or special
case treated of. Thus the weak-ending test is infallible for separating
Fletcher's work from Massinger's. It is only of use in Shakspere for
the later periods of his plays. The number of rhymes will separate
Dekker's from late Shakspere : but the manner of their introduction
would have to be noted in separating Dekker from early Shakspere.
To use rhymes as a test, in any way, of Ben Jonson's work would be a
waste of labour, while his triple endings, the one characteristic which
distinguishes him from all dramatists but Middleton, should be care
fully worked out in any question concerning his metre.

VI. Metrical tests should, unless in special cases, not be used in
the initiatory stages of investigation. The chemist will under
stand me at once when I say they are to be used as characteristic
and not as class tests. All questions as to authorship, date, &c.,
should be approximately determined on other grounds, and then the
metrical test should be applied to each portion to see if the separation

VI. 3. CANONS FOR THE USE OF METRICAL TESTS. 315

of unlike parts is complete. Thus in dividing the Witch of Ed
monton between its three authors, I first examined "the plots and
separated the scenes belonging to each : then I lookt to the treatment
of character, the style, and what are called the aesthetic tests : I found
these agree with the former division ; then applied my metrical tests
to each portion, and found my conclusions in all respects confirmed
and finally approved. Bat in dividing the Maid in the Mill between
Fletcher and Rowley, after separating the plots, I found the metrical
tests distinctly contradicting the division for the first Act : I had to
try back, and make a new hypothesis of change of work between the
contributors, and then all agreed with the metrical tests — and the
work was done. So, again, in Shakspere, I put forth in my first
paper a chronological table of Shakspere's plays. This was founded
on such knowledge as I then had of other evidences as confirmed by
my test of proportion of rhymes in verse scenes to number of bla"nk-
verse lines : since that time I have seen occasion, as this paper shows,
to change the place of Troylus and Cressida by assigning it to three
periods instead of two. This division is not based on metrical
grounds : I only use the metre to confirm my conclusions : but if
the metre were to contradict my conclusions drawn from other
grounds, I should throw up the whole theory and try again.
So I have found occasion to transfer the place of Cymbeline from
before Lear, Hamlet, and Othello, to after them ; and to leave a much
greater margin for the date of Macbeth : but in neither case do the
metrical tests contradict these changes, for the proportions for the
first-named plays are so close, 1 : 30 and 1 : 31, that I cannot attach
importance to them, and the place of Macbeth must stand undeter
mined by me till I have publisht my paper on the subject.

These tests are infallible when used with due precaution, but
useless otherwise. The chemist will understand me, again, when I
say that disturbing elements must be eliminated before characteristic
tests are applied ; and that specific results are not to be expected
from tests not characteristic. I intend to publish a tabular scheme
of my tests drawn up in the same form as chemical tables for the
laboratory, as a guide for future inquirers in these matters.

VII. Tests must be applied singly, but interpreted jointly. De-

31 G VI. 3. CANONS FOR THE USE OF METRICAL TESTS.

scriptions of all peculiarities of any author or any work, given to
gether, are comparatively useless. The dividing tests must first be
carefully determined for each case, and used one at a time. If they
give the same results, then the characteristic tests should be applied
one by one till all have been tried ; and if any one fails, the whole
analysis must be repeated on a different arrangement. In fact, what
ever is true of chemical testing is true mutatis mutandis in this kind
of testing also.

VIII. Mathematical deductions from the doctrine of chances
and inferences from one set of numerical results to another, are
most valuable to be applied whenever possible. For instance, Dr
Abbott's deduction from Mr Simpson's numerical statement, that
2700 words in Shakspere occur in two plays each and in no others — •
to the effect that 4 words only are to be expected as peculiar to
any given pair of plays, is most valuable as well as ingenious.
We shall find it of the greatest use in discussing Henry VI.

IX. The accuracy of our present texts must be considered. Some
of Fletcher's plays are in such a mutilated and incorrect state that it is
impossible to determine how many Alexandrines, &c., are in them. A
great part of the Scornful Lady, printed as prose even in Mr Dyce's
edition, is distinctly verse. Much Shakspere verse in Pericles is printed
as prose in the early editions. It is clear that any tabulations, or
deductions of numerical character, in such cases as these, depend
entirely for their value, in the first place, on the editor's arrangement
of the text. Thus, any critical conclusions from stopt lines or weak-
endings derived from the received text in Pericles, I assert meo pcri-
culo to be worthless.

X. We must adopt every scientific method from other sciences
applicable to our ends. From the mineralogist we must learn by
long study to recognize a chip Of rock at once from its general
appearance ; from the chemist, to apply systematic tabulated tests to
confirm our conclusions ; from both, to use varied tests — tests as to
form, as for crystals, — tests as to material, as for compounds ; from the
botanist we must learn to classify, not in an empirical way, but by
essential characters arranged in due subordination ; finally, from the
biologist we must learn to take into account, not only the state of

VI. 3. METRICAL TABLE OP THE 3 STORIES IN TROYLUS $ CRESSLDA. 317

any writer's mind at some one epoch, but to trace its organic growth
from beginning to end of his period of work : remembering that we
have often only fossils, and even fragments of fossils, to work from,
when our object is to restore the whole living animal. When these
things are done systematically and thoroughly, then, and then only,
may we expect to have a criticism that shall be free from shallow
notions taken up to please individual eccentricities : a criticism that
shall differ from what now too often goes under that name, as much
as the notions on the determining causes of the relations between
wages and capital differ in the mind of a Stuart Mill and that of a
Trades-Union delegate.

METRICAL TABLE.1

(1)

(2)

(3)

Troylus story.

Hector story.

Ajax story.

72

58

16

Rhyme lines.

607

798

873

Verse lines.

1 :8-4

1 : 13-6

1 : 54-5

ratio.

If, then, our rhyme-test is true,

(1) was written between first and second periods, nearer the
first than the second.

(2) between first and second periods, nearer the second than the
first.

(3) between third and fourth periods, nearer the fourth than the
third.

But these are exactly our conclusions from aesthetic and otner
grounds. The rhyme-test gives reliable results as usual when used
as a characteristic test.

F. G. FLEAY.

1 This division in no way contradicts that publisht by me in The Academy.
It only carries the analysis a step further : I first separated the Troylus story :
this separation I publisht in that paper. I now separate the Hector story.
The arguments that prove one prove the other.

318

DISCUSSION ON PAPEE VI.
June 12, 1874.

MR FURNIVALL : — [In consequence of Mr Fleay's subsequent
withdrawal and modification of part of his Paper, the original text of
these remarks, which was stereotypt 4 or 5 months ago, has been
alterd. But the endeavour to avoid too great alterations in the plates
has led to patchiness. — F. J. F., Dec. 3, 1874.]

1. As to the authorship of The Two Gentlemen of Verona,
there are two quotations not given in the Paper which are yet
valuable contributions to the history of opinion on the subject,
and may help some members in forming their judgment now.
The first is from an editor for whom Mr Fleay has lately expresst
very great respect, Mr J. Payne Collier ; the second is from one for
whom I have declard the same feeling, Mr Richard Grant White.
Mr Collier's opinion is as follows : —

" The notion of some critics that ' The Two Gentlemen of Verona '
contains few or no marks of Shakespeare's hand, is a strong proof of
their incompetence to form a judgment." 1 — Shakespeare's Works, 1844.

Mr Collier's Introduction to the play implies, I think, that
he considerd the whole play genuine. Now for Mr Grant White's
judgment : —

"Among the many unaccountable and incomprehensible blunders
of the critics of the last century, with regard to Shakespeare and his
works, was the denial by two of them — Hanmer and Upton — and
the doubt by more, that he wrote The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
An important and often quoted passage in the Pdlladis Tamia of
Francis Meres, published in 1598, mentions this play first among the
twelve which the author cites in support of his opinion, that ' Shake
speare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds [comedy
and tragedy] for the stage.' But this uncontradicted testimony, and
that of Shakespeare's friends and fellow-actors, who superintended the
publication of the folio of 1623, is hardly needed ; for" so unmistake-
ably does Shakespeare's hand appear in the play, from Valentine's first
speech to his last, that were a copy of it found without a name upon
its title-page, or a claimant in the literature or the memorandum-
books of its day, it would be attributed to Shakespeare by general

1 This opinion, Mr Collier does not, in his 2nd edition of 1858, practically
withdraw, like his Shrew opinion (which I noticed in the Discussion on the 3rd
paper), but he re-iterates it, adding "they could have read it {The T. G.~\ only
after perusing some of his greater and more mature compositions." On the
date of the play Mr Collier says, " We should be inclined to place it, as indeed
it stands in the work of Meres, before ' The Comedy of Errors ' and ' Love's
Labour 's Lost.' "

DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. THE LATE DATE OF TWO GEN. EXPLODED. 319

acclamation. Who but lie could then have written the first ten lines
of it, where Valentine says to Proteus,

' affection chains thy tender days

To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love/

and gently reproves him for living ' sluggardiz'd at home,' wearing
out his youth ' in shapeless idleness ' ? There has been but one
man in the world whose daring fancies were so fraught with meaning.
Who but he could have created Launce or Launce's dog 1 Indeed,
it is safe to say that, however inferior it may be to the productions of
his maturer years, even The Tempest and King Lear are not more
unmistakeably Shakespearian in character than The Two Gentlemen of
Verona." — R Grant White, Shakespeare's Works, ii. 201. "The com
paratively timid style and unskilful structure of The Two Gentlemen
of Verona show that it was the work of Shakespeare's earliest years as
a dramatic writer." 1 " Malone attributes it to 1591 . . . may we
not, with reason, place the production of his first 3 or 4 plays, of
Avhich this is undoubtedly one, earlier than 1591 — his twenty-seventh
year ? It is worthy of notice, that no evidence has come down to us
of the performance of The Two Gentlemen of Verona in the lifetime of
the author." ii. 103. (Its acting before 1598 is implied by Meres's
notice.)

The Two-Gentlemen part of Mr Fleay's Paper 2 is thus, in fact, an
attempt to set up again a portion of one of two theories which the
best of the late modern critics and editors have lookt on as ex
ploded and prostrate, namely : — That the play — now yths of it — is of
the date of 1595. [That J-ths of it is not Shakspere's is not now con
tended.] Why are we to go back to part of these old fancies, of
which modern criticism has found-out the worthlessness *? Already,
in the second Discussion on Paper 1, Mr Hales has shown that The
Two Gentlemen must be before Romeo and Juliet, and considerably
before The Merchant of Venice. His arguments have not been
answerd, but seem to have led to an attempt to turn his position
by a flank movement, by representing that the anticipations of the
two later plays which Mr Hales showd were in The T. G. are, in
fact, recollections or imitations of them, or of plays nearly contem
porary with The Merchant ; an attempt which the comparison of the
passages at once frustrates. We must recollect that the destruction
of the early date of The T. G. is necessary to Mr Fleay's Eyme-
Test having the value which he claims for it. This destruction is
also necessary to the firstness of his " Eyming-Period." Unless The
T. G. can be got out of the way, both of Mr Fleay's theories fail. We
are therefore bound to examine with care all that he says, and the

1 Tliis play, indisputably one of the earliest complete productions of Shake
speare's mind. — Staunton : Shakespeare's Works, i. 1.

2 For Mr Fleay's "all critics," 1. 9, read " many:'
TRANSACTIONS. 21

320 DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. MALONE GAVE UP THE LATE 1595 FOR -91.

theories he proposes, about the play, as we shall be his future ones
about Macbeth, Julius Ccesar, and Cymbeline.

2. I take the external evidence first. On it Mr Fleay says,
" This external evidence . . all points in one direction, and there
is not a tittle of evidence of this Icind for an earlier date" It is
hard to believe one's eyes on seeing this statement ; for, one of the best-
known facts with regard to the opinion on the date of The T. G. is,
Malone's change with regard to it. He had originally, in his first
edition, assignd the wrong late date of 1595 to the play, but saw his
mistake before issuing his 2nd edition. In that, after mentioning the
incidents and dates quoted in the Paper — Raleigh's voyage in 1595,1
the expected Spanish invasion in 1595, and the fleets equipt to en
counter it, Elizabeth's sending troops to the assistance of Henry
IV. of France, the plague of 1593, he says: — "But since my
former edition, I have been convinced that these circumstances
by no means establish the date I had assigned to this play. When
Lord Essex went in 1591 with 4000 men to assist Henry IV. of
France, we learn from Sir Robert Carey's Memoirs, p. 59, that he
was attended by many volunteers ; and several voyages of discovery
were undertaken about that very time by Raleigh, Cavendish, and
others. There was a considerable plague in London in 1583."
(Pestilences were frequent in Tudor times.) Without going further,
we should surely hesitate before taking up a deliberately-rejected
opinion of Malone's on a question quite within his competence.
But when we look at the facts, I think we shall hesitate more.

Supposing Shakspere to have come to London about 1585 or
1586, what were the events relating to foreign wars, expeditions, and
discoveries, that men would have been talking about then, and that
occurrd between that time and say 1592, the latest date that can (I
suppose) be possibly allowd for The Two Gentlemen ? I take the
events from Toone's Chronological Historian, vol. i., and remind you
that in all these enterprises, volunteers must havejoind largely ; in them
*' men . . put forth their sons to seek preferment out."

1584. Sir Walter Raleigh [obtained letters patent for discovering unknown
countries, and in 1585 took possession of] Virginia, named so by him in honour
of his virgin mistress, Elizabeth.

This year Sir Walter Raleigh went to discover the country adjoining to
Florida, in the West Indies, and returned in August, bringing two natives
along with him.

1585. Captain John Davis finished his third voyage in quest of a north
west passage : he sailed as far as 83 deg, of northern latitude, but returned
without success.

Davis discovered the strait which goes by his name, to the N. W., about
this time. [And also Cumberland Island?]

1 To discover and conquer, not islands, but the land of El Dorado. Raleigh
calld his account of it, " The Discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful Empire
of Guiana."

2 Some merchants and gentlemen of landed property, as also some noble-

DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. WARS AND DISCOVERIES IN ELIZABETH'S REIGN. 321

Queen Elizabeth, at the intercession of the Dutch, sent the Earl of Lei
cester and 6000 men to their assistance, and bad the Brill and Flushing
delivered into her hands, as a security for her charges."

Sir Francis Drake, with twenty-one sail of men of war, and land forces,
commanded by the Earl of Carlisle, surprised and plundered St Domingo, in
Hispaniola, took Carthagena, and arrived at Virginia in Florida, where they
took on board Captain Kalph Lane, and a colony that were in distress, having
been sent thither by Sir Walter Raleigh, and with them the tobacco plant was
first brought to England.

The Queen assisted the king of Navarre and the French Protestants with
money and ships, whereby they were enabled to raise the siege of Rochelle.

(Sir John Perrot suppresst the insurrections in the Northern burghs : 3000
of " their allies, the Hebridian Scots, were cut to pieces at Arradan.")

Elizabeth granted a license to several merchants of London, to trade to
Barbary.

The Prince of Conde came into England to solicit assistance in behalf of the

men belonging to the Court, in 1585 formed an association for the purpose of
sending out two ships on discoveries, under the command of John Davis, a very
experienced navigator. They set sail from Dartmouth on the 7th of June . .
the 20th of July they saw land. . . They named this horrid land ' the Land of
Desolation' [and calld other places Gilbert's Sound, Totness Road, Exeter
Sound, Mount Raleigh, Dyce's Cape, and Cape Walsingham, after the then
Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham]. Thus . . . Davis was the first
who in later times saw the western coast of Greenland. . . He afterwards dis
covered land farther to the Westward, on the island which lie afterwards
himself called Cumberland's Island. . . The sea between Cumberland's Island
and the western coast of Greenland was afterwards named Davis^s Straits ;
and as in the sequel all the land quite to Button's Islands, on the coast of
Labrador, was discovered by Davis. . . He likewise saw the Cape of God's
Mercy, and the straits which he also afterwards called Cumberland Straits. . .

On the 7th of May, 1586, Captain John Davis set out from Dartmouth,
with four ships, on his second voyage ... he a second time put into Gilbert's
Sound, . . after this . . . into Cumberland Straits, as far as the group of
islands there ... he at length ran into a harbour ... in the island of Good
Fortune. . .

The third and most important of Davis's voyages of discover}' was made in
the year 1587 . . . they sailed ... to the coast of West Greenland, and
landed on the 16th of June on one of the islands. . . On the 30th of June they
were in 72 deg. 12 min. N. lat. . . the whole of this coast was called London
Coast. . . Davis called [a] point of land ' Hope Sanderson,' after Mr William
Sanderson, who contributed the largest share in fitting out the ship for the
discovery. . . By the 23rd [of July] he had sailed up these [Cumberland]
straits, and anchored among a great number of Islands, situated in a cluster
at the end of the bay, and which he called after the Earl of Cumberland. . .
Davis, having left Cumberland Straits, discovered ... an opening which,
after my Lord Lumley, he called ' Lumley's Inlet' ... a headland which he
named ' Warwick's Foreland ' . . . a promontoiy which he called ' Chidley's
Cape.' Having had nothing but fogs and calm, they came at length to an
island, which Davis, after Lord Darcy, named Darcy's Island. — J. R. Forster's
Hist, of the Voyages and Discoveries made in the North, 1786, p. 298 — 310,
which Mr R. H. Major kindly referrd me to.

322 DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. WARS AND DISCOVERIES IN ELIZABETH'S REIGN.

Huguenots. The Queen supplied him with 50,000 crowns and ten ships, with
which he raised the blockade of Rochelle.

1587. The Queen sent Admiral Drake with a fleet upon the coast of Spain ;
he destroyed many of the enemy, and took some valuable prizes.

Admiral Drake burnt a hundred sail of ships in the port of Cadiz. 'The
Spaniards being determined to invade England, secretary Walsingham got all
the Spanish bills, that were to supply the king with money, to be protested at
Genoa. [Raleigh sends three ships upon a 4th voyage to Virginia. Davis
discovers Darcifs Island.1 " Some to discover islands far away." T. G. 1L
iii. 9.]

1588. Sept. Mr Cavendish finished his voyage round the globe, taking a
great many ships in the Pacific Ocean, and bringing home a considerable
treasure. He was two years and two months absent.

THE ARMADA. The City of London lent the Queen great sums of money .
. . . and being directed to furnish 5000 men and 15 ships, they raised 10,000
men and 30 ships . . . several noblemen and gentlemen fitted out ships of
war at their own charge, and joined the English fleet.

1589. Admiral Drake and Sir John Norris fitted out a fleet of men of war
at their own charges, and made a descent in Spain and Portugal with 11,000
men (the Queen only assisted with £60,000 and six ships), marched up to Lis
bon, and plundered the country, but not of sufficient value to defray the ex
pense of this expedition. In this expedition, out of 1100 gentlemen but 350
returned. ["Some to the wars to try their fortune there " (T. G. I. iii. 8) in
deed !]

June — The English seized sixty ships belonging to the Hanse towns, in the
Tagus. They were laden with naval stores to equip a fleet against England.

1590. Elizabeth kept the kingdom in a posture of defence against Spain,
and allotted a yearly sum of £8970 for the repairs of the navy. The Queen
fortified Milford Haven.

1591. Elizabeth sent the Earl of Essex, with 4000 men, to the assistance of
the King of France : but the French not joining him according to agreement,
he returned without effecting anything.

The French invested Rouen, and the Earl went again over to the siege, but
the Queen recalled him and the Duke of Parma raised the siege.

The Queen sent a fleet to intercept the return of the Spanish West India
fleet 5 upon which the King of Spain sent a fleet of fifty-five sail, and obliged
the English ships to return. . .

Captain Lancaster and Captain Rimer sailed to the East Indies, in order to
begin a trade there. Rimer was cast away, and Lancaster returned richly
laden, but only with seven hands on board.

Some ships went to Cape Breton, which was the first of the English whale
fishery.

1592. The Earl of Cumberland, the City of London, and Sir Walter Raleigh,
fitted out a large man of war, with land forces on board, to attack the Spanish
settlement in America ; but not succeeding there, they took a large galleon in
their return at the Azores, valued at £150,000, and the adventurers shared the
plunder : the crew of this vessel, which consisted of 600, were most of them
killed. The FalUand Islands discovered.

Is there not here abundant evidence that men, in the years 1585-
92, had plenty of chances of sending their sons to the wars, or on

[' See note 2, p. 37.]

DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. TV/0 GENTLEMEN BELONGS TO EROTIC PLAYS. 323

voyages of discovery, as we know their custom was1? Mr Fleay's
" not a tittle " is surely a mistake. As to Hero and Leander, —
can any one believe that Shakspere hadn't heard of the story before
lie was 25 1

3. Take next the internal evidence. I say, that so far from the
general style of Acts I and II of The Two Gentlemen being as near
The Merchant of Venice as possible on the one hand, and to Romeo
and Juliet on the other, the general style is as near that of Love's
Labour's Lost and The Comedy of Errors as well can be, with an
ticipations (as Mr Hales has well shown in his Discussion of Mr
Fleay's first Paper) of the later Rom,eo and Juliet ( 1 1593) and the
much later The Merchant of Venice (1 1596-8), though Launce and
his dog (the gems of The T. G.) are far superior — and by no means
"not far inferior" — to Launcelot Gobbo, the brass button of The
Merchant.

The group of Plays to which The T. G. belongs, is, as
Gervinus says, that of the "Erotic Pieces," " the Two Gentlemen of
Verona, Love's Labour's Lost, Al.l's Well that Ends Well, Midsummer
Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet."

" He shows us, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, how it is with a man
who abandons himself wholly to this passion [Love], and also its effect upon
the energetic character, still a stranger to it. He shows, in Love's Labour's
Lost, how a set of youthful companions unnaturally endeavour to crush it by
ascetic vows, and how the effort avenges itself. He shows, in All's Well that
Ends Well [which represents Loves Labours Wbnne~], how love is despised by
manly haughtiness and pride of rank, and how it overcomes these by fidelity
and devotion. He shows, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, in a marvellous
allegory, the errors of blind unreasonable love, which carries men forward in a
dream of life, devoid of reflection. He shows, lastly, in that great song of
love, in Romeo and Juliet, how this most powerful of all passions seizes two
human beings in its most fearful power, and, enhanced by natures favourable
to its reception, and by circumstances inimical to it, it is carried to extent
in which it overstrains and annihilates itself." i. 211-12.

So far is Mr Fleay's assertion, "In these two plays \The
T. G-. and The Merchant], AND THESE ONLY, the leading idea is
that of friendship," from being true, that in neither play is friend
ship the leading idea ; but that in The Two Noble Kinsmen (its
match also in name) and The Two Gentlemen, the leading idea is
Love's power to overcome and destroy Friendship.

Of The Merchant the leading idea is Vengeance overpowerd by
Love and Mercy. Shylock is the great character of the play,1 Portia
the second. Antonio and Bassanio are but secondary instruments ;
their friendship but a means to the chief end.

A far stronger link than Mr Fleay's one of friendship between

1 Thrice lately have I found myself looking in my MS. index to the Globe
edition for Shylock as the name of the Play ; and it cost me an effort to
remember The Merchant.

324 DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. TWO GENTLEMEN LIKE L. L. L. AND ERRORS.

The T. G. and The Merchant, exists between the T. G. and Love's
Labour's Lost, in this, that the second point of the T. G., the scorn
ful Valentine's subjugation by Love — as in the case of Troilus — is
taken from the main point of L. L. L., where lover after lover might
well repeat Valentine's speech to Proteus in T, G., II. iv. p. 26, col.
1, Booth :—

I, Protheus, but that life is alter'd now :

I haue done pennance for contemning Loue

Whose high emperious thoughts haue punish'd me

With bitter fasts, with penitentiall grones,1

With nightly teares, and daily hart-sore sighes ;

For, in reuenge of my contempt of loue,

Loue hath chas'd sleepe from my enthralled eyes,

And made them watchers of mine owne heart's sorrow.

0 gentle Protheus, Loue's a mighty Lord,2

And hath so humbled me, as I confesse

There is no woe to his correction ;

Nor to his Sendee, no such ioy on earth:

Now, no discourse, except it be of loue :

Now can I breake my fast,, dine, sup, and sleepe,

Vpon the very naked name of Love.

Is this like the Merchant, or like L. L. L. 1 The comparatively
surface character of The T. G. (notwithstanding Julia), while it suits
the earliest plays, L. L. L., The Errors, &c.; does not harmonize at all
with the intensity of The Merchant.

4. And, as in subject, so in characters and style, The T. G. links
itself on to the earlier Errors and Love's Labour's Lost. Mr Grant
White (iii. 346) has noticed how Shakspere, after having omitted a
professt Fool or Jester in Love's Labour's Lost—the character is lost
among four nearly resembling it, — has put two Fools in both The
Errors and T. G. And the word-play and talk of the pair in each
play is very much alike. Even the great scene between Speed and
Launcelot, as to the latter's milkmaid (Two Gent. III. i.), is but an
expansion of that between the two Dromios in The Errors, III, ii., as
to the kitchen-wench of him of Ephesus. That The Merchant's lover-
quizzing scene between Portia and Nerissa is but an expansion of
The T. G's like scene between Julia and Lucetta, Mr Hales has

1 Compare Berowne's speech on the three lovers' behaviour : —
O what a scene of foolery have I seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen.

L. L. L., IV. iii. 163-4.
8 Compare Berowne's

Go to : it is a plague
That Cupid will impose for my neglect
Of his almighty, dreadful, little might.
Well, I will loue, weepe, sigh, pray, sue, and groan. . . .

/,. L. L., III. i. 203—205.

DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. TWO GEN. EARLIER THAN MERCHANT OF VENICE. 325

already shown, while I contend that that, in its turn, is but the
working out of the scene in Love's Labour's Lost, where the Princess
asks Boyet about the vow-followers of the Duke of Navarre, and
mocks at them. Note, too, how Rosaline is evidently taken before
hand with Berowne, as Julia with Proteus, and Portia with Bassauio.
"We may also compare Proteus's advice to Thurio how to woo, and
their taking music to Silvia, with the Duke and nobles, in L. L. L., in
structing the page-herald how to deliver his message, and their taking
music to the Princess and her companions ; the Proteus-Thurio
sonnet to Julia, with the sonnets, &c., of all the lovers in L. L. L. ;
the last speeches of Julia, about the change in herself, in The T. G.,
Act IV., with Adriana's complaints in L. L. L. as to how her hus
band's unkindness has changed her. Mr Matthew also notes that
the unneeded rudeness of Valentine to Thurio in II. iii. 43, is a
mark of an early hand. At a later date Shakspere would hardly
have introduced a needless bit of personality like " You have an
Exchequer of words, and, I thinke, no other treasure to giue your
followers ; for it appeares by their bare Liveries, that they line by
your bare words."

Again, how does Valentine correspond to Bassanlo, as Mr Fleay
says'? Is Valentine a spendthrift, insolvent cavalier, designing
marriage to repair his broken fortunes ] Does he choose Sylvia by
caskets 1 Is Bassanio banisht for making love to Portia 1 &c. &c.

As to there being ' nothing like ' the type of Launcelot before,
the two Dromios are the predecessors of him and Speed, as I have
said. But that The Merchant developt hints of The T. G.f with
some distance between, is true.

On the general question of style, Gervinus says,

" The single long doggrel verses in the burlesque parts, the
repeated alliteration, many lyric passages in the sonnet-style of
tender but undramatic poetry, place the piece in the poet's earliest
period." — i. 217.

Mr Matthew well says that the large proportion of doggrel in
The T. G. is a very strong argument for the eaiiiness of the play, its
closeness to the Errors and Love's L. L., and its distance from The
Merchant. These 3 plays and the partly spurious Shreiv are the only
plays that contain any noteworthy proportion of doggrel ; and as Mr
Meay says all the doggrel in The T. G. is in the first two Acts, the
proportions stand as follows, if my counting and sums are right : —

Doggrel. Blank and 5

meas. ryme.

Love's Labour's Lost 194 into 1607 = 8'28

Errors 109 „ 1530 = 14*03

Two Gent., Acts I. & II. 18 „ 676 = 37'55

all „ 1626 = 90-33

Merchant of Ven. 4 „ 1989 = 497*25

As you like it 2 „ 996 = 498'

326 DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. INCONSISTENCIES IN THE TWO GENTLEMEN.

Moreover, any one reading the play — even the first two Acts — can
hardly fail to be struck with the frequent occurrence of the end-
stoptline, and the stiffness and less-richness of the verse and imagery
when compared with The Merchant. The T. G. is nearer The Errors
than that. Further, every reader of Mr Fleay's Paper will have
noticed that he has but one phrase from the Merchant,1 — " a lewd
interpreter," — to compare with The T. G.'s "a false interpreter."
This one point cannot be calld a broad foundation for a theory.
(The word ' interpreter ' too occurs in All's Well, IV. i. iii. ; Hen.
V., V. ii. ; Winter's Tale, V. i. ; Hen. VIIL, I. i. ii. ; Timon, V. iv.)

5. The once advanced notion that " Launce's description of his
dog's behaviour in IV. iv. . . is . . . more like an imitation than
genuine Shakspere," is so wild and groundless that Mr Fleay will
join us all in condemning it, I am sure. The passage is as surely
Shaksperian in idea and word as anything can be.

6. On point 2 of the Paper, that " In the first two Acts we hear
only of the Emperor's court as Valentine's residence ; never of the
Duke's :" I can only say that every reader of the play finds in Act
II. scene iv. (which Mr Fleay admits to be Shakspere's) the Duke,
and his daughter Silvia, at his court, talking to Valentine at that
same court where he resides, and where Proteus has come to him.
(This point has been since rightly withdrawn : see postscript to Mr
Fleay's 3.) This plain discrepancy in the first two Acts shows that all
the like ones which are noticed by Mr Fleay are due to want of re
vision. In Act III. the Duke is mentioned in the heading, which
is, I suppose, the author's doing, not the printer's.

7. To any objection that all the last 3 Acts are very weak, I say,
(compare Silvia's song in IV. i. with the song at the end of Love's
Labour's Lost, and see. Is not Valentine's soliloquy in III. i. above
the average too ])

8. Point 6. As the fathers of Proteus and Julia stay in Verona,
while the after-action of the play is all in Milan and the frontiers of
Mantua, the non-appearance of the fathers in that after-action is
surely accounted for. Who wants 'em again1? The young people
can, and do, settle their own affairs themselves. I don't admit the
'hints' about family opposition. The confusion about Julia's lands
is Shakspere's own.

9. I think Proteus's threat of violating Silvia is entirely consist
ent with the basely impulsive nature that Shakspere gives the man.
If Proteus, to gratify his passion, would abandon his first love, betray
his dearest friend, and cheat his host, he certainly wouldn't hesitate
to force the girl he lusted for, when he had a good chance. The act

1 I fully expected to find 1 Hen. IV. brought into the Paper, on the
strength of its " You rogue, they were bound, every man of them ; or I am a
Jew else, an Ebreiv Jen'," II. iv. 188, as compard with TJie T. G.'s "If thou
wilt, go with me to the alehouse ; if not, thou art an Hebrew, a Jem, and not
worth the name of a Christian," II. v.

DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. SOURCE OF TWO GEN. AND TWELFTH NIGHT. 327

would be wholly at one with the rest of his deeds. But the offer of
Valentine, the simple-natured, faithful lover, to give up his true love
to the base cad — gentleman turnd cad for the time by lust, if you
will — whom he found trying to violate her, just because the fellow
said he was sorry, is not at one with Valentine's nature, with a true
sense of honour or love. So, Silvia's sending her picture to Proteus
is not at one with her steady faith to Valentine. Still, Shakspere
knew more about Italian nature in the 16th century than we do, and
these seeming inconsistencies may be right, like Eomeo's grovelling
on the ground, ' blubbering and weeping ' (R. $ J. III. ii. 83-8).

(10. As to the origin of the play, on p. 6 : "It is, however, certain,
that whether from the translation or the original, this story [from
Diana, containing Felismena], as well as the first [Apolonius and
Silla], was used for The T. G. and Twelfth Night also." Now if
' this story ' means only the story, from wheresoever got, the above
statement may pass. But if ' this story ' means the story-book of
Diana, — as the argument seems to turn on the use of the book — then
the statement is not certain. Nor is it certain that " From Felis-
mena the main part of The T. G. is taken." Even Mr Collier him
self, who printed the Felismena and Arcadia extracts in his ' Shake
speare's Library,' vol. ii., says, — S.'s Works, i. 87, —

" If ' The Two Gentlemen of Verona ' were not the offspring merely of the
author's invention, we have yet to discover the source of its plot. Points of
resemblance have been dwelt upon in connexion with Sir Philip Sidney's
* Arcadia ' 1590, and the ' Diana ' of Montemayor, which was not translated
into English by B. Yonge until 1598 ; but the incidents, common to the drama
and to these two works, are only such as might be found in other romances,
and would present themselves spontaneously to the mind of a young poet."

Mr Grant White says,, ii. 103, "in his preface Yonge informs us
that the translation had lain by him ' finished, Horace's ten, and
six years more ; ' and it is possible that Shakespeare, if he did not read
Spanish, might have become acquainted with the story in its English
dress during these sixteen years. In any case, his debt was so small
that we need not be solicitous about acknowledging it for him."

As to Twelfth Night, had Mr Fleay verified his second-hand Shrew
quotation from Mr Collier's Hist, of Engl. Dram. Poetry, he would
have seen in another part of the book, an entry quoted from the MS.
Diary of a Contemporary of Shakspere's, a barrister of the Temple,
John Manningham by name — a crowded awkward-reading little
MS. it isj too; Harl. MS. 5353 — which would have prevented that
' certain.' The MS. has since been printed by the late Sir Wm.
Tite, who gave copies of it to the Camden Society. Dyce quotes it
thus:— ' 1601 [-2], Eeb. 2. At our feast we had a play called
Twelve Night or What you Will, much like the Commedy of Errors,
or Menechrni in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian
called Inganni," &c.

Since that, the late Mr Joseph Hunter has shown that an Ittlian

328 DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. SHAKSPERE's RE-USE OF FORMER SOURCES.

comedy, GV Ingannati, printed under the title of II Sacrificio, (and
which Mr T. L. Peacock translated in 1862,) is much closer to the
serious parts of Twelfth Night, and was most probably the source of
the serious parts of Shakspere's Play — if he had seen or heard of it :
and if Manningham recognizd the Italian source of the play, the
probability is that Shakspere got it from Italy.

But, notwithstanding Mr Collier's warning in his Introduction to
'Apolonius and Silla/ as in Tlie Shrew, Mr Fleay recurs to 1831.
Simrock wrote in 1831 ; his Eemarks were translated in 1850 (Shake
speare Society) ; and so it is ' certain ' that The T. G. was taken from
' Apolonius and Silla.' Still, the point is a minor one.)

11. While the modified statement is true that "in many known
instances we find that Shakspere worked continuously from one book
at various periods of his life ", yet no argument against the early date
of The Two Gentlemen can be drawn from the fact, for it is as certain
as it well can be, that Shakspere in at least 5 instances used a book
or author more than once at very different periods of his life. (I
employ the word * used ' as meaning ' is presumed to have used, be
cause the original contains the same or similar characters or incidents
as or to those of the later play.')

I. Chaucer. Shakspere used his Knighfs Tale in the early Mid
summer Night's Dream and the late Two Noble Kinsmen. Chaucer's
Troilus, Shakspere used in early life, in Troilus and TJie Two Gentle*
men. Gamely n — 'then supposed to be Chaucer's — Shakspere may
have used in As You Like It of his middle time.

II. Appollonius of Tyre. Shakspere used the incidents of the
separation of father, mother, and child, and their unexpected re-union
after long years, both in his early Comedy of Errors and his late
Pericles, — the mother in the Errors being an Abbess : in Pericles
the high-priestess of Diana (Dr Wislicenus and his friend, in Die
Liter atur 1874).

III. Holinshed's Chronicle. Shakspere used this in his early-
Histories, his later (Macbeth, Lear} and latest Tragedies (Cymbeline],
and in his latest History, Henry VIII.

IV. North's Plutarch. Shakspere probably used this (for
Theseus) in his early Midsummer Night's Dream, and certainly in
his later Roman plays and Timon. (Julius Ccesar probably differs
widely in date from Coriolanus : see below, Mr Halliwell's Hint, to
be read on June 26.)

V. Boccaccio's Decameron. Shakspere used this for his All's
Well, and his late Cymbeline.

VI. Cinthio's Hecatommithi was used for both Measure for Mea
sure, which Mr Fleay dates 1603, and Othello, which he dates 1605.

And as with story and book, so with incident. Compare the
Duke's banishment of Rosalind, in As You Like It (I. iii. 79-86),
because she cuts-out his daughter Celia, with Dionyza's plotting
Marina's death, in the much later Pericles, because she eclipses her

DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. PARALLELS TO THE TWO GENTLEMEN. 329

(Dionyza's) daughter Philoten, " she did distain my child," IV. iii.
31. Compare again the shipwrecks in The Errors, Pericles, and The
Tempest ; the pretty impatience of Juliet to get news of Romeo from
her nurse, in the early Romeo and Juliet, with that of Eosalind to
get news of Orlando from Celia, in the later .4$ You Like It, III. ii.
191, &c.; of Imogen to get news of Postumus and fly to him, in the
much later Cymbeline, III. ii., &c. &c. The fact of this repetition
of incident in plays differing widely in date, is surely one of the
common-places of Shakspere criticism.

12. I cannot admit any break-down of the argument of premature
incompleteness to establish the date of The Two Gent. Where is the
break-down 1 Are not Shakspere's early works ' incomplete ' as com
pared with his later ones? Do not Chaucer's works follow his
growth, begin poor, wax rich, and in old age turn poor again ?
What is Byron's earliest trash when compared with his later better
poems 1 What is the main argument of Mr Fleay's own paper, but
that the first two Acts of TJie T. G. are in nearly the same stage of
completeness and l general style ' as The Merchant of Venice, or its
immediately preceding plays, and therefore of about the same date 1

13. What is the true parallel, in word and thought, to the lines
Mr Fleay quotes from The T. G.,

0 how this Spring of Love resembleth

The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,

And by and by takes all away 1

his "Men judge by the complexion of the sky," &c., from Rich. IL,
III. ii. 193, or this of Luciana's from The Errors, III. ii. 3,

— shall, Antipholus,

Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot 1
Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous ?

14. As to the argument from the two bits of " conversation in
rymeless lines of six syllables ; " let us try it on two like rymed pas
sages — what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Thus
L. L. L. II. i. 201—214 (and see 123-8).

Long. Pray you, sir, whose daughter 1

Boyet. Her mother's, I have heard,

Long. God's blessing on your beard. . . .

Biron. What's her name in the cap 1

Boyet. Rosaline, by good hap.

Biron. Is she wedded, or no ?

Boyet. To her will, sir, or so.

Biron. You are welcome, sir, adieu.

Boyet. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.

330 DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. PARALLELS TO THE TWO GENTLEMEN.

" To match this we must turn to Twelfth Night, which is unques
tionably of the . . second period " . . " that of the man of the world,
the satirist . . from the same mint as Ealstaff and his companions,
the same as Pistol and Parolles." (Fleay, p. 16.)

Mai. Is 't even so ?

Sir To. l But I will never die.'

Clo. Sir Toby, there you lie.

Mai. This is much credit to you.

Sir To. t Shall I bid him. go'] '

Clo. < What an if you do T

Sir To. ' Shall I bid him go, and spare not ? '

Clo. ' 0 no, no, no, no, you dare not.' — II. iii. 114 — 121.

"Any one who has traced Shakspere's manner of work, and the
development of his metre, would on these passages alone be confident
that these plays [Love's Labour's Lost and Twelfth Night] were pro
duced at the same time or nearly so." Bat his confidence would be
sadly misplaced.

The phrase " I would you knew," occurs in L. L. L. v. 2, Merry
Wives, ii. 2 ; " would I knew " in Winter's Tale, ii. 1, and " I would

1 knew in what particular " in AIT 8 Well, iii. 6. The phrase ' Say '
so and so — occurs so often in plays of all Shakspere's periods that I
need only refer to the quotations in Mrs Clarke's Concordance ; the
L. L. L. instances are i. 1 ; ii. 1 ; iv. 3 ; v. 2.

15. "There are also similarities of language between Acts I. and II.
of The Tico Gentlemen " and [Love's Labour Lost]. Compare,

Speed. Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with you.
with Berowne's —

Yet I have a trick
Of the old rage ; bear with me, I am sick. (L. L. L., V. ii. 417.)

(This similarity, by the way, is shared by the following poems and
plays: Liter., 612. Tp., IV. 159. As, II. iv. 9. John, IV. ii. 137.

2 H. IV., II. iv. 63. 1 //. VI., IV. i. 129. Etc. III., I. iii. 38 ;

III. i. 127, 128 ; IV. iv. 610. Cor., IL i. 65. Caes., III. ii. 110 ;

IV. iii. 119, 135, 255. Haml, III. iv. 2. Lear, IV. vii. 83;
Schmidt.)

'Open this purse' is in Lear, III. i. 45. On 'beadsman,' says
Schmidt, compare Hen. V., IV. i. 315 :

Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold up
Toward heaven to pardon blood.

As to ( hammer' not being used elsewhere than in Rich. II., V.
v. 5, in the same sense, it certainly is so used in Winter's Tale, II.
ii. 49:

DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. PARALLELS TO THE TWO GENTLEMEN. 331

I'll presently

Acquaint the queen of your most ngble offer,
W ho but to-day hammered of this design,
But durst not tempt a minister of honour,
Lest he should be denied.

And the sense differs very little, if at all, from Shakspere's speech
of Duke Humphrey to his wife in 2 Hen. VI., ii. 47-8 :

And wilt thou still be hammering treachery,
To tumble down thy husband and thyself
From top of honour to disgrace's feet.

" Elysium . . only used once besides in Henry V." It is in
Cymbeline, V. iv., "poor shadows of Elysium hence;" and twice in
Henry VI. } Parts 2 and 3, though perhaps not in Shakspere's parts.

" Like a schoolboy that has lost his ABC. Two Gent. II. i. 23."
" He teaches boys the hornbook. What is A, b, spelt backward 1 "

L. L. L., V. i. 49-50.
" Fair as a text B in a copy-book." L. L. L., V. ii. 42.

For the bargain, Schmidt gives "Figuratively, a contrast of
love : ' pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted, ivhat bar
gains may I make, still to be sealing? Ven., 512. Gen., II. ii, 7.
L. L. L., V. ii. 799. Mercli., III. ii. 125. Troll., III. ii. 204. Rom.,
V. iii. 115."

1 6. For a likeness of expression such as Mr Fleay quotes between
the T. G.'s * tears, boat, and sighs,' and Horn, and Jul's ' tears, bark,
and sighs/ take this : —

2 Gentlemen, I. i. 72-6,

Speed. Twenty to one, then, he is shipped already,

And I have played the sheep in losing him.
Pro. Indeed, a sheep doth very often stray,

An if the shepherd be a while away.
Speed. You conclude that my master is a shepherd, then, and /

a sheep ?

Love's Labour's Lost, II. i. 219-222,

Mar. Two hot sheeps marry.

Boyet. And wherefore not ships ?

No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.
Mar. You sheep, and I pasture : shall that finish the jest?
Boyet. So you grant pasture for me.

17. As to the "imitations of Shakspere's preceding work "in
the last three acts of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, we can of
course match many of the extracts by Shakspere's " imitation " or
"repetition" of them in his after works. For the "she is peevish,

332 DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. PARALLELS TO THE TIVO GENTLEMEN.

sullen, f reward, proud, &c.," compare "Virginity is peevish, proud,"
All's Well, I. i. ; "a peevish self-willed harlotry," 1 Hen. IV., III. i.,
&c. ; for "Love is like a child, &c.," "Love is merely a madness,"
As You Like It, III. ii. 150; for ' deploring dump', "of dumps so
dull and heavy," Much Ado, II. in., song ; and (as Mr Mathew
reminds me) for " in the milk-white bosom of thy love," III. i., " In
her excellent white bosom," Hamlet, II. ii. ; for "Wilt thou reach stars
[Silvia], because they shine on thee"? III. i. 156, " That I should
love a bright particular star [Bertram] and seek to wed it," AlTs
Well, I. i. 97 ; for " black as ink," III. i. 289, " beauteous as ink,"
L. L. L., V. i. 41 (see the passages); "the ebon-coloured ink," Ib.,
I. i. ; " black as the ink that's on thee," Cymbeline, III. ii. ; for " is
full of jealousy," II. iv., " so full of artless jealousy," Haml., IV. v.,
&c. &c.

The mistakes of names — Verona for Milan, &c., are due to want
of revision, like the Emperor's court for the Duke's in the early part
of the play which I have mentiond before.

18. As to the ' reminiscence ' argument : — it is hardly a parody of
part of this (e,g,) to quote from Love's Labours Lost, IV. iii. 69-170,

0 me, with what strict patience have I sat,

To see . . .

. . Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,

And critic Timoii laugh at idle toys !

and then say, with Mr Meay, " An evident reminiscence." No sane
man would, I assume, try to draw any argument from this to prove
that Love's Labours Lost was later in date than Timon or the Greek
part of Troylus. Then why couldn't Shakspere think of lovers meet
ing on late-spring or summer nights, and hearing the nightingales
sing, before he had written Romeo and Juliet ? Had he never heard
of such things before he was twenty-eight 1 He, the amorous, the
writer of Venus and Adonis, possibly at twenty-one ?

19. As to the oaths passages, take this from L. L. L., IV. iii. :
Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,

'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

Vows for thee brooke, deserve not punishment . . .
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love . . .
Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is,

Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth done shine,
Exhalest this vapour-vow.

20. Again, compare : —

What light is light, if Silvia be not seen 1 . . .
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon.

Two Gentlemen, III. i.

DISCUSSION1. JUNE 12. PARALLELS TO THE TWO GENTLEMEN. 333

Berowne. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Biron :
O, but for my love, day would turn to night.

L. L. L., IV. iii. 232-3.

the milk-ivhite bosom of thy love. Two Gentlemen, III. i.
the snow-wldte hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.

L. L. L., IV. iii. 136 (and see V. ii. 411).

Vol. How know you that I am in love 1

Speed . . . First you have learned, like Sir Proteus, to wreath your
arms like a male-content ; to relish a love-song, like a robin-redbreast
. . to sigh . . to speak feeling. Two Gentlemen, II. i.

By heaven, I do love ; and it hath taught me to rhyme and to
be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melan
choly. L. L. L., IV. iii. 13.

The word ' direction-giver ' may be compard with ' vow- folio wer '
in L. L. L. ; and if, as Mr Eleay says, " the scene with the host is
from Love's Labour's Won" and " Proteus is a palpable imitation of
Bertram" in the same play, which must have followd close on
Love's Labour's Lost, then these likenesses make for the nearness of
The T. G. to L. L. Lost.

21. I do sincerely hope that Mr Eleay speaks for himself alone
when he says we have " no deep individual sympathy " with Juliet,
such as we have for Antonio with his resignation, or Shylock with
his vengeance, and that Eichard II. suffers only " for making a mis
take in banishing Bolingbroke," and not, like John, "for his crimes
towards his . . . country1" (his R. II's robbery of his uncle's estate, his
sacrificing England to his favourites, &c.). I can only say that my
individual sympathy with Juliet is as deep as with that of any other
woman — or man either — in Shakspere. The figure of that sweet
girl, all glorious in her beauty and youth, stepping out from her
cold dark home for scarce two days into the light and warmth of love,
and then sinking into misery, forgetfulness, horror, and the grave, is
one that, with its sad eyes, most draws me to it, whenever I look at
the pictures, the beings, that Shakspere has left us. It is like the
Cenci : one cannot away from it.

To contrast the deathful severing of Juliet and Romeo — as if it
were less deep — with Portia's most willing temporary separation from
Bassanio, that he and she may save his friend, is, to me, only evidence
how far a desire to support the Ryme Test and Period can warp the
judgment. "Why too do l the first unfaithfulness in' married life,
4 the first infidelity in ' a husband — Antipholus of Ephesus to his wife
Adriana in The Errors, and ; the first sad sufferings of betrayed love '
— Julia's in The T. G. — come into " the dreams of youth," while
the less unfaithfulness of a friend, the less suffering of Viola, are put

1 Note that John is poisond by a monk for his rebellion against the Pope,
while Richard II is deposed by Parliament, or resigns before it, for those
crimes against his country which made the country fall away from him.

334 DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. THE HAMNET-ILLNESS THEORY.

among " the sadder realities of life " ? Is the Ryming Period the
cause 1 And the reason too why Launce and his dog are " fevered
incoherent creations of the fancy " ]

22. As to Mr Fleay's theory of the cause of Shakspere's writing
incomplete plays at certain periods of his life, and the assumption of
Hamnet's illness1, &c., with the 'angel of death,' &c., though these
tempt me to suggest, in all good humour, a simpler solution, based
on the physiological hint given on p. 335, namely, that at these
periods of change of style, Shakspere was moulting — fowls ' are
always out of condition at that time ; horses are always faint when
they change their coats, — yet, as we know nothing about Hamnet's
illness, as the fact of some of the plays being of double date is not
establisht, and as, if it were, their first date is not certain, we may
well decline to accept Mr Fleay's " plausible " theory. Of all such
assumptions one may say, " Incerta non incertis probantur."

1 Those who hold, with Mr Fleay, that the date of King John is 1596, a
date given up by the best critics (I am told) as too late for the play, should
refer to the passage which such 1596 men may fairly claim as Shakspere'3
real references to his boy Hanmet (buried Aug. 11, 1596), namely, those in
Constance's most touching speeches in King John :

Father Cardinal!, I haue heard you say

That we shall see and know our friends in heauen.

If that be true, I shall see my boy againe ;

For since the birth of Caine, the first male-childe,

To him that did but yesterday suspire,

There was not such a gracious creature borne :

But now will Canker-sorrow eat my bud,

And chase the natiue beautie from his cheeke ;

And he will looke as hollow as a Ghost,

As dim and meager as an Agues fitte ;

And so hee'll dye : and, rising so againe,

When I shall meet him in the Court of heauen,

I shall not know him : therefore neuer, neuer

Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.

Greefe fils the roome vp of my absent childe,
Lies in his bed, walkes vp and downe with me,
Puts on his pretty lookes, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffes out his vacant garments with his forme :
Then, haue I reason to be fond of griefe ?
Fare you well ! had you such a losse as I,
I could giue better comfort then you doe.
I will not keepe this forme vpon my head,
When there is such disorder in my witte :
O Lord, my boy, my Arthur, my faire sonne,
My life, my ioy, my food, my all the world,
My widow-comfort, and my sorrowes cure !

There may be the father's cry over the lost Hamnet in that. This he
must utter. Falconbridge can go beside it ; Falstaff follow it next year.

DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. THE ( MORE-PROSE ' THEORY. 335

23. The statement that after Shakspere's first moulting period "his
poetry is mingled with prose to an extent previously unknown " is an
incautious one, inasmuch as his earliest play, Love's Labour's Lost,
contains more prose than his three latest plays, The Winter's Tale,
Tempest, and Cymleline, and than his later Troylus, Hamlet, Lear,
Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth, &c. ; while his second
play, The Comedy of Errors, contains more prose than his later
Macbeth, Julius Cwsar, and Antony and Cleopatra : — •

Plays. Prose. Lines.

L. L. Lost 1086 into 2789 = 2'56

Troilus 1186 „ 3423 = 2'88

Hamlet 1208 „ 3924 = 3-24

Winter's Tale 844 „ 2758 = 3-26

Lear 903 „ 3298 = 3*65

Her. of Venice 673 „ 2705 = 4-01

Coriolanus 829 „ 3392 == 4'09

Tempest 458 „ 2068 = 4'51

Two Gentlemen 409 „ 2060 = 5-03

Cymbeline 638 „ 3448 = 5'40

Othello 541 „ 3324 = 6-14

Errors 240 „ 1770 = 7'37

Macbeth 158 „ 1993 = 11-97

Julius Ceesar 165 „ 2440 = 14-78

Ant. & Cleopatra 255 „ 3964 == 15'54

24. To the argument from the greater proportion of rymes in one
part of the play over the rest, I cannot tell what weight to attach
till Mr Fleay has sent us (to print) his table of the proportions of
ryme and blank lines in every scene and act of Shakspere's plays.
We could then, after verifying the figures, judge whether any other
genuine play or plays of Shakspere show the like unequalness of
ryme-contents that The Two Gentlemen does, in its different Acts.
At present, I suppose that some entirely genuine plays do exhibit
this phenomenon. These remarks apply to the proportion-tables of
run-on lines that I have printed for The Two Nolle Kinsmen, Henry
VIII , and The Shrew. The confirmatory value of these tables is, I
see now, much less than I formerly thought it was.

25. .Reviewing the whole evidence pro and con, I say that the exter
nal as well as the internal, the leading idea of the play, the analogues
of its main characters, its style and its word-likenesses, all require us,
Avho are not bound to Ryme-Tests and Ryming-Periods, to reject the
arguments and statements (often groundless) which Mr Fleay has
put forth — evidently without long consideration, as we know from
former documents — to induce us to take up again the old wrong
notions as to the date of Shakspere's Two Gentlemen of Verona.

26. I have dealt mainly with the question of date. As to the-

TRANSACTIONS. 22

336 DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. THE TROILUS SCHEME.

authorship of tlie last three Acts, I am at present only prepard to
maintain that the Launce and Speed parts of them, the song " Who
is Silvia1?" IV. i. 39-53, the opening lines of V. i. (" so much they
spur their expedition "}, and V. iv. (" How use doth breed a habit in a
man ! "), and some other touches, are Shakspere's. As to the rest, I
wait for further light. The verse in them is, to my ear, less full and
flowing, more choppy, than Shakspere's usually is. And occasionally
prose lines like "And now I must be as unjust to Thurio," IV. ii.,
need examination (as the vocabulary does too).

But we know how poor some of the lines in Midsummer Night's
Dream are : that the Valentine sonnet in T. G. III. i. 1 40-9 isn't worse
than the Armado lines in L. L. L., IV. ii. 108-120 ; and that the
whole question of what Shakspere's earliest style was, is yet in
debate. We have still to hear Mr E. Simpson on this point, and to
examine the case of Mr Grant "White and his fellows on Henry VI.
against those who hold that the lifted lines in Parts II. and III. of
that play were Marlowe's, in the main. Till this question is settled,
one cannot tell whether The T. G. is not rightly calld, as in Mr
Fleay's heading, ' A Play of Shakspere of which Portions were writ
ten at different Periods of his life,' or whether Acts I. II. III. were
not largely retoucht by him. Mr Halliwell tells me that he now
withdraws any former chance opinion he gave as to the spuriousness
of any part of The T. G. He has long been convinced of the
genuineness of the whole Play. I also believe that it is all Shakspere's.

27. One point with regard to the end of The T. G., Mr Fleay
raises himself in the Troylus part of his Paper, p. 299-300. As

" Shakspere would not, in all probability, write even so incomplete a sketch
as the Troylus story without contriving an end for it, and writing this end.
This is the practice of all great writers, as far as we can trace their work ",

why didn't he write the end of The T. G. 1

28. The Troylus divisions I have not been able to examine with
reference to the Second, Hector, story. In Mr Fleay's former separ
ation of the Troylus and Cressid story from the Greek and Trojan
one l I agreed. But now the picking-out of three elevens of lines in
Acts I. III. IV. (Sc. 5), and an eight in III. i., and saying 'these are (])
one year later than the lots before or after them/ make me hesitate ;
while the " undoubtedly Shakspere's" applied to V. v. x. with- their
exaggerated phrases, coupld with Mr Fleay's late change of opinion
as to there being no second hand in the Troylus, lea.d me to wait
before giving-in to" his last theory of the Play. I doubt the two re-
castings of the Play.

29. For the Twelfth-Night theory I cannot yet see the necessity
or sufficient ground. The passages which gave rise to it seem to me
consistent : the Duke asks Viola to sing one verse of a song that he,

1 The two styles, early and later, in the Troylus, were pointed out years
ago by Mr Verplank, Mr Grant White, and no doubt earlier critics.

DISCUSSION. JUNE 12. THE TWELFTH-NIGHT SCHEME. 337

she, Curio, &c., heard last night. Curio doesn't know that Viola
can sing, and naturally tells the Duke that the Clown who sang the
song isn't present to sing it again. Then Curio goes to fetch the
Clown : and while he's away, the Duke more fully describes, and
gives his opinion on, the song, to Viola, just as a master might to a
pupil, though both of them had heard the song and liked it. The
slight consequentialness of the Duke airing his feelings, and ex
pounding to his page Viola, what she understood "better than he did,
is surely an ordinary bit of weakness in people of rank, and others
beside. And certainly Malvolio, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew
Aguecheek and Maria, are inseparable from Olivia, just as the Duke
and Viola are. Both stories turn on the one axis, Olivia, just as
characters from both are on the stage together in I. v. ; III. i. iv. ;
V. ' Not proven ' should be our verdict on the Twelfth-Night case,
I think.

P.S. In The Athenceum of June 20, 1874, p. 827, col. 2, Mr
C. Eliot Browne supplies fresh evidence for supposing that no part
of Twelfth Night was written by 1598 : —

" Shakspeare was, probably, indebted for the names of the heroines of
'Twelfth Night' to the first part of Emanuel Forde's < Parismus, the Ee-
nowned Prince of Bohemia,' Lond. 1598, for neither Olivia nor Viola occurs in
the Ingannati from which Shakspeare is believed to have borrowed the plot.
In the romance, Olivia is Queen of Thessaly ; and Violetta, the name of a lady,
who, unknown to her lover, disguises herself as a page to follow him, and she,
also, like Viola, is shipwrecked (see F. f. 3 and D. d. 3). If this conjecture is
founded on fact, the negative evidence that ' Twelfth Night ' was written after
1598 afforded by its omission in Meres' s list is confirmed. I am inclined to
believe also that some slight traces of Shakspeare's familiarity with 'Parismus'
may be discovered in ' Cymbeline ' and the ' Winter's Tale.' It is worth men
tioning, perhaps, that the ' coast of Bohemia ' plays a conspicuous part in this
story, so that Shakspeare certainly had contemporary authority for his
geography."

If the latter conjecture is as well founded as it seems to be, it is an
additional strengthening of my argument in § 11, that Shakspere used the
same original at very different times of his life.

P.S. On the fresh statements introduced (p. 289, No. 2), I have at
present only to note, that if the words ' worthy lord, gracious lord]
"are confined to the last three acts," the words "My lord, 1. 52, my
good lord, 1. 55, my good lord" 1. 59, "my lord your father," 1. 116,
are used in Act II. sc. iv., where alone in the first two acts the Duke
is introduced; and that in 1. 121 his daughter is calld "your lady
ship." Note also that in II. iv. 77 the Duke himself says of Proteus,
that he's " meet to be an emperor's counsellor," no doubt alluding to
the " emperor's court" of I. iv. 27, 38. Thus Shakspere within his
first two acts alterd Emperor to Duke, or at least made the two cha
racters identical.

On the fresh theory of the later date of that part of the play which
is (with the exceptions I have noted in my comments above) poorer

338 DISCUSSION, JUNE 12.

in execution and weaker in conception than the other part, I can
only say, that I see neither proof nor probability in the notion that in
two years forward, Shakspere went four backward in power and skill.
I look on the ryme-test as no more conclusive for the double date
than the double authorship, which is already given up.1

p. 103, note 2. Mr Fleay's words are, "Mr FurnivalTs own
statements, when stript of their ' rich verbal colouring,' show dis
tinctly (1) that Mr Grant White added nothing whatever to the
theory originally proposed by Mr Collier ; (2) that Mr Grant White
omitted a main part of Mr Collier's view, namely, that the play was
not produced till 1601." As my statements showd " distinctly " that
Mr Grant White had added to Mr Collier's view ; and as I had said
nothing whatever about the date of the play, or Mr Grant White's
view of it, I treated, and still treat, the above apparent deductions
from my premises as really independent assertions by Mr Fleay.
For his twice-repeated charge against Mr Dyce (Athenceum, May 16,
1874, p. 664; May 20, p. 732) I have searcht and enquird in vain
for any foundation. — F. J. F.

1 The words of Mr Fleay's P.S. 3, "Not having yet seen (20th August,
1874) the discussion on this paper," must mean 'the whole of the discussion '
that took place at the Society's meeting on June 12. The reporter hadn't sent
it in, and Dr Abbott, when applied to by me in August for his share in the
discussion, said that he did not consider his remarks worth committing to
paper. Mine, printed and given out with Mr Fleay's Paper, and sent then to
him, are the only ones yet printed. — F. J. F., 4 Sept., 1874.

339

VII. ON TWO PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE'S,

THE VERSIONS OF WHICH AS WE HAVE THEM ARE THE RESULTS OF
ALTERATIONS BY OTHER HANDS.

PART I. MACBETH. PART II. JULIUS CAESAR.

PAET I. MACBETH.

(Read at the Seventh Meeting of the Society, June 26, 1874 ; and afterwards revisd.)

WERE it not that I have the high authority of the Cambridge
editors to countenance me in my main theory of this play, I should
almost fear to produce it : the popular idea that this is not only one of
the most powerful, but also one of the most perfect, works of Shakspere
must necessarily raise so strong a prejudice in the minds of my
readers against so bold a hypothesis as I shall have to lay before
them, that it will be in most cases difficult even to obtain a hearing,
much more a candid consideration of it. And if difficult, as I know
by several years' experience it is, to get a hearing for their hypothesis
as they present it, it will be far more so when pushed to the far
greater extent that appears to me inevitable. The general statement
is this : Macbeth in its present state is an altered copy of the original
drama, and the alterations were made by Middleton. I commence by
a condensed statement of the arguments of Messrs Clark and Wright.

1. The stage directions in III. v. 33. Sing within, Come away,
Come away, fyc. ; and IY. i. 43 : Musicke and a Song, Black Spirits,
$c., refer to two songs given in full in Middletoii's Witch.

2. The Witch and Macbeth have points of resemblance, a. As
Hecate says of Sebastian, " I know he loves me not," so Hecate says of
Macbeth, " He loves for his own ends, not for you." b. In the Witch,
"For the maid-servants and the girls o' th' house, I spiced them

340 VII. 1. MESSRS CLARK AND WRIGHT'S VIEWS ON MACBETH.

lately with a drowsy posset : " in Macbeth, " I have drugged their
possets." c. In the Witch, Hec., " Come, my sweet sisters, let the air
strike our tune : " in Macbeth, " I'll charm the air to give a sound."
d. In the Witch, "The innocence of sleep : " in Macbeth, " The innocent
sleep." e. In the Witch," There's no such thing : " in Macbeth the
same words. /. In the Witch, "I'll rip thee down from neck to
navel : " in Macbeth, " He unseamed him from the nave to the chaps."
And, they add, there are other passages.

3. The witches in the two plays are strongly alike, though Hecate
in one is a spirit,1 and in the other an old woman.

4. There are parts of Macbeth not in Shakspere's manner :
namely —

a. I. ii. Slovenly in metre, bombastic ; 1. 52, 53 not consistent
with. I. iii. 72, 73, 112, &c. Shakspere would not send a severely
wounded soldier with news of victory.

I. iii. 1 — 37. Not in Shakspere's style.

II. i. 61. " Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives."
Too feeble for Shakspere.

II. iii. Porter's part. " Low, written for the mob by another
hand." — Coleridge.1

III. 5. Not in Shakspere's manner.

IV. i. 1—38. Masterly, but doubtful : falls off in 1. 39—47.
III. v. 13. "Loves for his own ends." But Macbeth hates

them : calls them " secret, black, and midnight hags."

III. v. 125 — 152. Cannot be Shakspere's.

IY. iii. 140 — 159. Interpolation : probably before a Court-repre
sentation.

V. ii. Doubtful.

V. v. 47 — 50. Weak tag : unskilful imitation.

V. viii. 32. " Before my body I throw my war-like shield." In
terpolation.

Y. viii. last 40 lines. Two hands clearly. Double-stage direc
tion. " Fiend-like queen" disputes the pity excited for Lady Macbeth : l
" by self and violent hands " raises the veil dropt over her fate with
Shakspere's fine tact.

III. ii. 54, 55. Interpolation.

1 I do not agree with this.

VII. 1. THE MACBETH PORTEIi's "EVERLASTING BONFIRE." 341

Play probably interpolated after Sliaksperes withdrawal from
theatre [not earlier than 1613].

Their opinion as to I. i. is doubtful. They also decline giving
opinion as to date of the Witch.

The above is, I hope, a fair abstract of their views : what I shall
try to do is to carry them out still farther, and to support them with
new arguments.

[Here followed in the first issue of this paper a discussion of the
Porter's speech in Act ii. Sc. 3, which I have since withdrawn.

There was in it one blunder which even now I wish to set right.
The singular words " everlasting bonfire" have been misunderstood
by the commentators. A bonfire at that date is invariably given in
the Latin Dictionaries as equivalent to pyra or rogus ; it was the fire
for consuming the human body after death : and the hell-fire differed
from the earth-fire only in being everlasting. This use of a word so
remarkably descriptive in a double meaning (for it also meant feu de
joie : see Cotgrave) is intensely Shaksperian.1 I do not however say
that this speech is unaltered §hakspere : I only leave out all discus
sion of it as not bearing on my main argument, and coming into un
necessary collision with opinions worthy of great respect even if one
differs from them.]

Taking, then, for granted that one of the two plays, the Witch
and Macbeth, was copied from the other in certain parts, it is im
portant to consider if there is any evidence which was the earlier.
Such external evidence as we have favours the view that the Witch
was. Middleton says in his dedication, " Witches are ipso facto by
the law condemned: and that only, I think, hath made her lie so long
in an imprisoned obscurity." It seems from this at first sight as if
the play had been written long before the dedication, and the dedica
tion had been written soon after — in King James the First's first year,
1 603 — the laws against witches had been confirmed. But the words
will bear another interpretation, and we cannot build on this. Malone
gave up this opinion in favour of the other, that Macbeth was the
earlier : nor do I see how the coincidences of expression pointed out
by Clark and Wright are to be explained otherwise, as several of

1 Compare also All's Well that Muds Well, iv. 5, " They'll be for the
flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire,"

342 VII. 1. THE NATURE OF THE WITCHES IN MACBETH.

these occur in parts undoubtedly Shakspere's : and he would not
imitate Middleton. In this view the Cambridge editors coincide.
This point being, then, probably determined, the question arises, could
Middleton have altered this play after 1613, and yet have written
the Witch after that] Certainly; for he continued writing till 1619
at least. There is, then, nothing external to prevent our hypothesis
being true, if we can show sufficient internal evidence that it is
necessary.

I next pass to the consideration of the nature of these witches.
In Holinshed we find that " Macbeth and Banquo were met by iij
women in straunge and ferly apparell resembling creatures of an
elder world : " that they vanished : that at first by Macbeth and
Banquo " they were reputed but some vayne fantasticall illusion," but
afterwards the common opinion was that they were l ' eyther the
weird sisters that is ye Goddesses of destinie, or else some ^implies
or Femes endewed with knowledge of prophesie by their Mcromanti-
call science." (Act II. Sc. 2.) But in the part corresponding to IV.
i. Macbeth is warned by "certain wysardes" to take heed of Macduff :
but he does not kill him, because " a certain witch whom he had in
great trust " had given him the two other equivocal predictions.
Now it is to me incredible that Shakspere, who in the parts of the
play not rejected by the Cambridge editors never uses the word, or
alludes to witches in any way, should have degraded "ye Goddesses
of destinie " to three old women, who are called by Paddock and
Grimalkin (their incubi or familiars), sail in sieves, kill swine, serve
Hecate, and deal in all the common charms, illusions, and incanta
tions of vulgar witches. The three who "look not like the inhabit
ants o' th' Earth and yet are on't ; " they who " can look into the seeds
of Time and say which grain will grow ; " they who " seem corporal,"
but " melt into the air " like " bubbles of the Earth : " the " weyward
sisters " who " make themselves air " and have " more than mortal
knowledge " are not beings of this stamp. Were it for this reason
only, Act I. Sc. i., Sc. iii. 1. 1 — 37, and III. v. (in which the
servants of Hecate are identified with the three beings who meet
Macbeth in I. ii.) must be rejected. Shakspere may have raised the
wisard and witches of the latter parts of Holinshed into the weird
sisters of the former parts ; but the converse process is impossible.

VII. 1. THE WITCHES AND HECATE IN MACBETH. 343

I shall recur to this, but want first to dispose of Hecate. The
Hecate of III. v. and IV, i. occurs nowhere else in Shakspere.
Even in this play the " pale Hecate," whose " offerings witchcraft
celebrates," the " black Hecate who summons the beetle to ring
night's yawning peal," is the classical Hecate, the mistress of the
lower world, arbiter of departed souls, patroness of magic, the three
fold dreadful Goddess : so she is" in Midsummer Night's Dream, in
Lear, in Hamlet. " Triple Hecate's team," " The mysteries of Hecate
and the night," " with Hecate's ban thrice blasted," are the phrases
we meet with there : in this play she is a common witch, as in
Middleton's play (not a spirit, as the Cambridge editors say), the
chief witch : who sails in the air indeed ; all witches do that : but a
witch, rightly described in the stage direction : Enter Hecate and the
other three witches.

I must here in parenthesis ask how the usual theory can be
made consistent with this stage direction 1 The three witches are
already on the stage : the other three must mean the weird sisters
who appear in I. iii. to Macbeth in the Shakspere part of the play,
and are identified with the Middleton witches in I. iii, 32. They
are quite distinct from the Shakspere witches of IY. i. The
attempts made to evade the evidence of this stage direction as being
a blunder, should be supported by instances of similar blunders :
instances where characters already on the stage are described as
entering. Omissions of such directions are easy to understand : their
insertion without cause is unexplained, and I think inexplicable.
Then this un-Shaksperian Hecate does not use Shaksperian language :
there is not a line in her part that is not in Middleton's worst style :
her metre is a jumble of tens and eights like some of the Gower
choruses in Pericles, a sure sign of inferior work ; and what is of
most importance, she is not of the least use in the play in any way :
the only effect she produces is, that the three fate-goddesses, who by
the introduction of the play were already brought down to ordinary
witches, are lowered still further to witches of an inferior grade with
a mistress who " contrives their charms " and is jealous if any "traffick
ing" goes on in which she does not bear her part. She and her
songs, and the speech in IV. i. 125 — 132, which is certainly hers,
although all the editors assign it to First Witch, are all alike not

344 VII. 1. THE NATURE OF THE WITCHES IN MACBETH.

only of the earth earthy, but of the mud muddy. They are the
sediment of Middleton's puddle, not the sparkling foam of the living
- waters of Shakspere.

Thus far, then, my results coincide with the Cambridge editors' : I
reject I. i. and I. iii. 1 — 37 ; III. v. and IV. i. 39—44. But now we
must face the real difficulty. What are the witches of IV. i. 1 are they
the " weird sisters," fairies, nymphs," or goddesses 1 or are they ordinary
witches or wizards, as we should expect from the narrative in Holins-
hed, and entirely distinct from the three mysterious beings in I. iii. ?
I hold the latter view. In order to support it, it will be necessary to
show that they are not weird sisters in the higher sense : to give a
hypothesis as to how they got confused with them : to try to present
some idea of Shakspere's intentions regarding them. Now Act IV.
Sc. i. 1 — 47 is admitted by all critics to be greatly superior to the
corresponding passage in I. iii. Clark and Wright hold it to be
Shakspere, except the Hecate bit. I agree with them ; but then I
cannot identify these witches with the Nbrnse of I. iii. These are
just like Middleton's witches, only superior in quality. They are
clearly the originals from whom his imitations were taken. Their
charms are of the sort popularly believed in. Their powers are to untie
the winds, lodge corn, create storms, raise spirits, but of themselves
they have not the prophetic knowledge of the weird sisters, the all-
knowers of Past, Present, Future ; they must get their knowledge
from their masters, or call them up to communicate it themselves.
JSTor do they call themselves weird sisters, although the three in I. iii.
(early rejected part) do so ; their knowledge is from the pricking of
their thumbs ; they are submissive to the great King who calls them
filthy Itags ; secret, Wack, and midnight hags ; their answers to them
both are ambiguous, delusive ; those of the weird sisters were pithy,
inevitable : the witches are of the middle ages, a growth of the
popular superstitions ; the Nornae are of the old Aryan mythology, and
worthy of their parentage. But however strongly I may feel this
difference between the supernatural beings of I. iii. (latter part) and
IV. i. j — and I think that any one who can read these two scenes divested
of old associations and prejudice will agree with me ; — however sure I
may feel that Shakspere could not have given up the " destiny god
desses " of his authority for this play so as to lower them to the wizards

VII. 1. THE RYMING-TAGS IN MACBETH. 345

and witches of Macbeth's later time, there is a great stumbling-block
in our way. In III. iv. 133 and IV. i. 136 Macbeth calls the
witches of IY. i. " the weird sisters." It is true that he has called
item filthy hags, that he describes them as riding on the air, that he
is surprised that Lennox did not see them pass by him, that they may
have x left the stage in the ordinary way, while Macbeth was in a
reverie : that he never alludes to them afterwards as he so often does to
the real "weird sisters," but onlymentions "the spirits" or "the fiend."
All this is true, but if my theory be true also, those two passages
must be explained. This is a real difficulty, and I cannot satisfac
torily solve it at present. III. iv. 133 I think is an insertion of
Middleton's, and in IV. i. 136 the original reading may have been,
Saw you the sister witches ? or something like this : but I don't think
the text has here been tampered with : I can only conjecture that
Shakspere made a slip, or intended Macbeth, who was thinking of the
original prophecy, to make one. I do not think the difficulty weighty
enough to support the common view of itself, but I admit its im
portance.

I next pass to a matter of entirely different nature. The
Cambridge editors have pointed out some instances of rhyming-tags
so weak in this play that they cannot admit them as Shakspere's
work. I desire to add largely to the number of such exceptionable
rhymes. For instance, I. iv. 48 — 53. Macbeth has " humbly taken
his leave," and been dismissed by the king. While going out he
soliloquizes thus to the groundlings :

The Prince of Cumberland ! That is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o'er-leap :
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires !
Let not light see my black and deep desires :
The eye wink at the hand : yet let that be
"Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.

During this, Banquo has been praising him to Duncan in words not
leported to us. Then Duncan goes on, " True, worthy Banquo," &c.

1 I feel certain on this point. The stage direction, vanish WITH HECATE, is
mere Middleton, and of no authority.

34 G VII. 1. THE RYM ING-TAGS IN MACBETH.

This is not like Shakspere : but is just such, an attempt at being
like Shakspere as I should expect Middleton to write. Note
specially the weakness of the italicized words, and of the next line.

In II. iii. end :

there's warrant in that theft
Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left.

This is too weak and thin for Shakspere to emphasize, and the ending
of II. iv. is worse :

Ross. Well, I will thither.

Macd. Well, may you see things well done there ! Adieu !
Lest our old robes sit easier than our new.

Ross. Farewell, father.

Old M. God's benison go with you, and with those
That would make good of bad, and friends of foes.

Delete both couplets, which are bad : the last is atrocious.

IV. i. end :

No boasting like a fool ;
This deed I'll do before this purpose cool

is wretched. See how the passage reads without it :

give to the edge of the sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That trace him in his line. But no more sights !
Where are these gentlemen 1

In Y. i. end : "

Doctor. So, good-night :

My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.

Omit second line of couplet, which is almost too contemptible for
Middleton at his worst.

VII. 1. THE RYMING-TAGS AND DOCTOR IN MACBETH. 347

V. iii. end, after Macbeth's emphatic declaration,

I will not be afraid of death and bane,
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane,

the Doctor's washy sentiment,

Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,
Profit again should hardly draw me here

is surely out of place. Why should our sympathy with Macbeth be
interrupted by the Doctor's private sentiments

V. iv. end :

The time approaches,

That will with due decision make us know
What we shall say we have, and what we owe :
Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate ;
But certain issue strokes must arbitrate

cannot surely be Shakspere's.
V. vi. end :

Make all our trumpets speak ; give them all breatJi,
Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.

This tautology cannot be Shakspere's j besides, the whole sentiment
is too weak for the situation.

In some of these I may have missed some inner aesthetic meaning
which is too deep for my comprehension ; but the number of them is
far too great for me to be wrong in all. I conclude therefore that
Middleton altered the endings of many scenes by inserting rhyming-
tags : whether he cut anything out .remains to be seen.

The next point I notice is, that the account of young Siward's
death and the unnatural patriotism of his father, which is derived
from Holinshed's history of England, and not of Scotland, like the
rest of the play, is a bit of padding put in by an inferior hand : to
my mind the story is not nearly so well told as in Henry t)f Hunt-

348 VII. 1. SPURIOUS CHARACTERS IN MACBETH.

ingdon, and spoils the denouement, which is decidedly better, if the
first whom Macbeth combats turns out to be the fated warrior not
born of woman : but this leads us to a much larger and more import
ant point : the number of characters in this play who only appear
for a scene or two and then are heard of no more. In the 27 scenes
(20 in Folio, 28 in modern editions) there are only 8 in which new
characters are not introduced ; a phenomenon unexampled in all the
dramas I have read. Some of these — Fleance, Donalbain, MacdufFs
wile, the Scotch Doctor, are real aids to the story ; but others are
not. We will examine the latter in more detail.

The severely-wounded captain in I. ii., who mangles his metre
so painfully, I surrender at once to the Cambridge editors as
Middleton's. In all probability, however, this scene replaces one of
Shakspere's, one of whose lines,

The multiplying villanies of nature,

seems to be still left in it as it now stands. In this scene Eoss
comes in afterwards, and is sent to Macbeth to greet him with his
new title ; he says, "I'll see it done." Lennox also is present, not
Angus. Koss and Angus take the message to Macbeth in I. iii.,
where Angus speaks 10 lines, and then disappears till V. ii., a scene
which I shall endeavour to show was Middleton's : he there Has 7
lines to repeat ; so that he has 1 7 in all. He is not of the slightest
use in the play. Lennox could have done his work better in I. iii.
on account of his after connection with Macbeth : V. ii. is not
wanted at all. Either, I think, Middleton has cut down Angus's
part in the original play by omitting scenes in which he appeared :
or he is not a Shakspere character at all ; and Middleton altered I.
iii. from Lennox to Angus just to give him something to do.

Hecate we have already discust.

The old man in II. iv. is suspicious : he talks of "hours dreadful
and things strange : " a detestable inversion worthy of the writer of
" He can report of the revolt the newest state," I. ii. He is of no
•use : the preternatural phenomena had been already dwelt on suffi
ciently in II. iii. 35 — 44 in Shakspere's best manner, not in the
prosy would-be poetry of this scene : I am not sure' whether the

VII. 1. SPURIOUS PASSAGES IN MACBETH. 349

effect in II. iv. is not even comic. "Dark night strangling the
travelling lamp" is certainly queer, and "Duncan's horses" (from
Kilkenny) "eating each other" might well amaze Ross's eyes when
he " looked upon V I reject 1. 1 — 20 in this scene, and " strangle "
the old man.

Then V. ii., with its metaphors and metre bad alike, must be
rejected :

Their dear causes

Would, to the bleeding and the grim alarm,

Excite the mortified man.

Malcolm called " the medicine of the sickly weal " (medicine for
doctor), and the invitation " to pour in our country's purge as many
drops of us as are needed to dew the sovereign flower and kill the
weeds" are enough to condemn any scene without extenuating
circumstances.

But with V. ii., V. \v. must go with its wretched tag noticed
above. They are closely connected. Menteith and Caithness will
then trouble us 110 more. V. vi. and part of vii., clearly put in for
the groundlings for the sake of the leafy spectacle and the double
combat, must also be rejected, and thus we have cleared off Siward
senior as well as Siward junior. In fact, these characters, stuck in the
conclusion of a play for fighting's sake, are not uncommon (compare
the Myrmidons and the Greek in sumptuous armour in Troylus and
Cressida, who are just as much Shakspere's as Siward and Caith
ness), but where such alterations have been made we can generally
detect it by something strange in the altered aspect of the play.
The Cambridge editors have here pointed out the double stage-
direction, Exeunt fighting ; and Enter fighting, Macbeth dead.
(Compare the double-ending of Troylus and Cressida.)

We have yet to consider III. iv. 130 — end. The metre of

And betimes I will to the weird sisters ;

the poverty of thought in

For mine own good
All causes shall give way : I am in blood

350 VII. 1. .SPURIOUS PASSAGES IN MACBETH.

Stept in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er :
Strange things I have in head that will to hand,
Which must be acted ere they will be scan'd ;

the putting this long tag in Macbeth's mouth when he is so be-
wilderd that he answers Lady Macbeth's —

You lack the season of all natures, sleep —

by

Come, we'll to sleep,

are all marks of inferior work, and make me sure that this part has
been workt over by Middleton.

There is a passage in IV. i. that has been workt over in a similar
way. After the speech of the third apparition Macbeth says,

That will never be.

Who can impress the forest, bid the tree
Unfix his earth-bound root 1 Sweet bodements, good !
Rebellious dead, rise never till the wood
Of Birnam. rise, and our high-placed Macbeth
Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath
To time and mortal custom.

" Our high-placed Macbeth " cannot be said by Macbeth himself : it
must be part of a speech of a witch. " Sweet bodements ! " looks
also like Middleton, and the whole bit is, in my opinion, a fragment
of Hecate's inserted by him. " Rebellious dead " seems to me an
allusion to Banquo's ghost, misplaced by Middleton. If we read
" Rebellion's head " it seems a mistaken interpretation of the armed-
head apparition : in any case, it is not Shakspere. And I have no
doubt a minute examination may detect still more traces of Middle-
ton : but in an essay of this kind more detail would be wearisome.
Enough is given for my purpose to show that Middleton was a re-
caster of the play, not a joint author.

Before giving my theory as to this play, and the metrical con

vii. i. SHAKSPERE'S AND MIDDLE-TON'S PARTS IN MACBETH. 351

firmations of it, I had better perhaps add a table of the parts I do
believe to be Shakspere's : I do not wish it to be supposed that
Middleton wrote Macbeth.

SHAKSPERE. MIDDLETON. l

I. i. (Witches).

ii. (altered from Shakspere).
iii. i_37. (Witches).
I. iii. 38—156.

iv. except 6 lines rhyme-tag.

v.
vi.
vii.

II. i. except 2 lines rhyme-tag,

ii.

iii. except rhyme-tag,

iv. 20 — 37. II. iv. Old man and rnyme-tag.

III. i.

ii. except rhyme-tag.

iii.

iv. except bit at end.

III. v. (Hecate).

III. vi.

IV. i. except Hecate and 6-line bit and tag.
ii.

iii. except 140 — 158 (touching for evil).

V. i. except one line.

V. ii. 1-31 (Menteith).
V. iii.

V. iv. 1-21 (Menteith, Siward).
V. v. except 4 lines tag.

V. vi. 1-10 (Siward).

V. vii. 1—4. V. vii. 4 — viii. 3. (Siward).

V. viii. 3—34 ; 54— end. V. viii. 35—53. (Siward).

1 The part assigned by me to Middleton, but not by the Cambridge editors,
is chiefly in Act v., and is not 100 lines in all.— F. G. F.

TRANSACTIONS. 23

352

This is an instance in which such an edition as I have given of
Marina (Pericles) and Timon would be worthless. Middleton cer
tainly did not confine himself to adding to Shakspere's work : ho
also re-modelled, re-wrote, and made large excisions. We ought to
have an edition of this play in two types : the presumed alterations
and additions of Middleton's being in a smaller type than the rest,
so that the better and more important portion might be read by itself.

I now give my theory as to the composition of the play. It was
written by Shakspere during his third period : I think after
Hamlet and Lear (see Malone) ; it must come before Cymbeline,
which was certainly the last of that series of plays : then its date
will be probably 1606. Metrical evidence is of no use in deter
mining the date : as we cannot tell how far Middleton altered it, or
liow much lie omitted, except that the weak-ending test is not opposed
to my earlier date. At some time after this, Middleton revised it : I
agree with the Cambridge editors in saying not earlier than 1613.
There is a decisive argument that he did so after he wrote the
Witch, namely, that he borrows the songs from the latter play, and
repeats himself a good deal. It is to me very likely that he should
repeat himself in Macbeth, and somewhat improve on his original
conception, as he has done in the corresponding passages : and yet
be unable to do a couple of new songs, or to avoid the monotony of
introducing Hecate in both plays (Hecate being a witch in both,
remember). I can quite understand a third-rate man, who in all his
work shows reminiscences of others, and repetitions of Shakspere,
being unable to vary such conceptions as he had formed on the
subject. I believe that Middleton, having found the groundlings
more taken with the witches, and the cauldron, and the visions in
IY. i. than with the grander art displayed in the Fate goddesses of
I. in., determined to amalgamate these, and to give us plenty of
them. Hence the witches call themselves weird sisters in the lyric
part of I. iii. : hence the speech of Macbeth, " I will to-morrow to
the weird sisters," &c. I believe also the extra fighting in the last
scenes was inserted for the same reason. But finding that the magic,
and the singing, and the fighting made the play too long — for a play
of that kind cannot be endured to the length of an ordinary tragedy

vii. i. MIDDLETON'S REVISION OF MACBETH. 353

of Shakspere's — he cut out large portions of tne psychological Shak-
spere work, in which, as far as quantity is concerned, this play is very
deficient compared with the three other masterpieces of world-poetry,
and left us the torso we now have. That the taste of the mob is of
the nature I assign to it, is evident enough from the way this play is
put on the stage now. I am not play-goer enough to say how often it
has been represented in my time without still further additions from
Middleton's lyrics and Locke's music, but I think it cannot be very
often. To hide the excisions Middleton put on the tags at the places
he made the scenes end : and to my thinking, if any one will compare
the endings of the scenes when Shakspere has left them without tags
with those where I have tried to show that Middleton put them in,
he will find that there is a great difference in the completeness of the
scenes. Or try another experiment : cut off the tags from the scenes
where Shakspere put them and those where Middleton put them ; a
similarly decisive result will be felt. It is impossible to show this
in a paper : if I were doing an edition of the play with the oppor
tunity of summing up the aesthetic of each scene at the end of it as
I went on, I am certain I could make it manifest : not to mention
many smaller details I cannot stay to 'discuss here, such as the stage
direction in IV. i. about Banquo's carrying the glass. But I must
stay to protest against the modern way of altering and inserting
stage directions ad libitum ; it has thrown back our criticism twenty
years. I could not myself stir in this matter till I obtained reprints
of Folio and Quartos, which I could not for many years, for reasons I
need not dwell on here. I do not think we should do well in issuing
mere reprints only, but no alteration even in popular editions should
be made without being markt by brackets or italics, or some warning
that there is an alteration : unless in correction of mere -printers'
errors, or in arranging the lines, or in punctuation.

We now come to the metrical evidence. From the nature of the
interpolations in the rhymes, &c., our usual tests are not attainable.
Fortunately there are others of great value that are. I give first,
then,

354

VII. 1. TABLE OF LENGTHS OF SHAKSPERE's PLATS.

TABLE OF SHAKSPERE'S PLAYS ARRANGED ACCORDING TO
THEIR LENGTH.

Antony and Cleopatra,

Hamlet,

Richard III.,

Cymbeline,

2 Henry IV.,

Troylus and Cressida,

Coriolanus,

Othello,

Henry V.,

Lear,

1 Henry IV.,

2 Henry VI.,
Merry Wives,
Romeo and Juliet,
All's Well, &c.,
As You Like It,

3 Henry VI.,
Much Ado, &c.,
Measure for Measure,
Love's Labor's Lost,

Prom this table we see that all the last eight plays fall into two
classes. One class consists of a pair of early plays in which the
subjects are fanciful, rather suited for an interlude than a comedy :
in which the unity of time (when I use these words, I mean the
Aristotelian, not the French unity) is adhered to : which were both
produced before Shakspere had learnt his work as a playwright,1 how
ever much he excelled already as a poet. The other is composed of

3964

Winter's Tale,

2758

3924

| Henry VIII.,

2754

3599

( Two Noble Kinsmen,

2734

3448

Merchant of Venice,

2705

3437

1 Henry VI.,

2693

3423

Twelfth Night,

2684

3392

Taming of Shrew,

2671

3324

Richard II.,

2644

3320

King John,

2553

3298

Titus Andronicus,

2525

3170

* Julius Caesar

2440

3032

^Pericles

2386

3018

*Timon

2358

3002

Mid. Night's Dream,

2217

2981

^Tempest,

2068

2904

*Two Gent, of Verona,

2060

2904

^Macbeth,

1993

2823

Comedy of Errors,

1770

2809

Average, 2857.5

2789

Average to the dark line,

3000

1 I hold that Shakspere began to act at the theatre in Shoreditch in the
latter part of 1593, when the theatres reopened after the plague. — F. G. F.

VII. 1. TABLE OF RYME-TAGS IN SHAKSPERE. 355

six plays, five of which were finished or altered by some other poet,
as I have myself tried to show, and Mr Staunton has satisfactorily
accounted for the sixth (The Tempest). It cannot be accident that l
every play thus altered should fall among the eight shortest of these
38 plays.

The chance of such an event happening is 1 in 101,120^, less
than one in 100,000 : it cannot be due to accident : there must be a
cause. One possible cause is assignable. We know from comparing
the Quarto and Folios of Lear, Hamlet, Othello, Richard III., &c.,
that the acting plays were often shorter than the written ones : we
know also that many of Shakspere's plays as we have them could
not well be performed in the customary two hours (see Prologues to
Henry VIII. and Borneo and Juliet) : we know also that in modern
times his plays are invariably shortened for representation. What then
more likely than that Macbeth and Julius Cwsar should have been
shortened on account of their prolixity, and that the alterer should
have overshot his mark ? This is, however, merely conjecture :
whatever the cause, the fact remains the same : the guess is merely
offered till a better be proposed or further evidence obtained.

Next I give

TABLE OF RHYME-TAGS IN SHAKSPERE.

No. Scenes No. Scenes No. tag

in play. with tags. rhymes.

Love's Labor's Lost, 948

Mids. Night's Dream, (cannot be calculated ; whole scenes rhyme)

Comedy of Errors, 11 9 19

Eomeo and Juliet, 24 12 29

Richard II., 19 13 28

2 Gent, of Verona, £ 10 4 7

1. 10 1 1

Troylus and Cressida, 24 15 27

Twelfth Night, 18 12 26

1 The two j.«*y§ f "finish t by Fletcher do not fall under this category.
They are of Fletcher's average length

356 VII. 1. TABLE OF RYME-TAGS IN SHAKSPERB.

No. Scenes No. Scenes No. tag

in play. with taga. rhymes.

Richard III., 25 11 13

Merchant of Venice, 20 13 19

John, 16 11 14

1 Henry IV., 19 9 12

2 Henry IV., 19 8 12
Henry V., 23 13 14
Much Ado, 17 3 13
Merry Wives, 23 3 3
As You Like It, 22 8 16
Taming of Shrew, 12 8 16
All's "Well 23 14 22
Measure for Measure, 17 7 10
Hamlet, 20 14 15
Othello, 15 7 8
Lear, 26 9 13
Macbeth, 28 21 33'
Cymbeline, 27 11 16
Pericles, a. 988

„ b. 11 4 4
Timon, a. 766

„ b. 10 8 12

Coriolanus, 29 2 i

Julius Csesar, 18 4 5

Antony and Cleopatra, 42 4 6

2 Noble Kinsmen, a. 11 1 1

„ b. 11 1 1
Tempest, 911

Winter's Tale, 15 0 0

Hen. VIII. (all Fletcher's tags), 17 4 5

Titus Andronicus, 14 3 3

1 Henry VI., 27 13 14

2 Henry VI., 24 8 9

3 Henry VI., 28 10 14

On the other uses to be made of this table this is not the place

VII. 2. JULIUS CAESAR ALTERED BY BEN JONSON. 357

to dwell : I wish only to call attention to the fact that more scenes
end with tags than in any other play in Shakspere : that the number
of tag-rhymes is also greater than in any other play, including his
very earliest. In other words, that at a time when he had given up
the use of rhyme in great measure (for all critics admit this for his
3rd period), in that part of the play where the supernatural is not
introduced, he has on the common theory used more than tw^e as
many tag-rhymes as he has used in any play subsequent to the
Merchant of Venice: and these for the most part, as Clark and
Wright have so justly pointed out, of the baldest and most feeble
description. If the difference were small, it might be explained
perhaps from the nature of the play ; but such a difference is only
explicable on the hypothesis of a second writer : the conclusion we
have reached on other grounds.

F. G. FLBAY.

PAET II. JULIUS CAESAR.

MY theory as to this play is so unlike anything hitherto advanced
that I shall begin by stating it ; so that the startled reader may have
it in his power to shut the book at once, if the hypothesis seems to
him too absurd to be entertained. I believe that this play as we
have it is an alteration of Shakspere's play, made by Ben Jonson. I
will first give a number of reasons for my belief that the common
theory cannot be true, and then enter into details as to my own.

1. The name Antony is a very favourite one with Shakspere : it
occurs in Much Ado About Nothing, Love's labor's Lost, Macbeth,
Henry V., Richard III., Romeo and Juliet, and Antony and Cleo
patra : in all these seven plays it is always spelt Anthony, or
Anthonie, with an h ; but in this play invariably Antony or Antonie,
without one. So Ben Jonson always rejects the h ; see Catiline,
especially ; passim.

2. The number of participles in -ed, with the final syllable pro
nounced, is out of all proportion to the other plays, especially the

358 VII. 2. SIGNS OF BEN JONSON's WORK IN JULIUS CAESAR.

latter ones. I have not had time to count them, but it is clear on
merely reading the play. Examples : plunged, vexed, transformed.

3. I. ii. To-morrow, if you please to speak with me

I will come home to you : or if you will,
Come home to me, and I will wait for you>

Home in to thy house, chez toi : never used by Shakspere ; but
Jonson, Catiline, III. i. :

I'll come home to you. Crassus would not have you
To speak to him fore Quintus Catulus.

4. II. iii. " Quality and kind " not found elsewhere in Shakspere.
He has " quality and brain," " quality and name," not kind. .Jonson,
Every Man in his Humour, II. i. :

Spirits of our kind and quality.

5. The phrase " bear me hard," occurs three times in this play ;
in I. ii. ; II. i. ; III. i., not elsewhere in Shakspere. But Jonson,
Catiline, IV. v. :

Ay, though he bear me hard,
I yet must do him right.

Bear hard occurs in 1 Henry IV., and hard forbear in Othello, but
in a different sense from that in this place.

6. The number of short lines in this play, where no pause is re
quired, is very great, and seems to point to the fact that it has been
greatly abridged for the purpose of representation. Example :

II. i. He says he does, being then most flattered.
Let me work !
For I can give his humour the true bent.

II. i. Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar
I have not slept.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing, &c.

II. i. And by-and-by thy bosom shall partake
The secrets of my heart.
All my engagements I will construe to thee, &c.

VII. 2. SIGNS OF BEN JONSON's WORK IN JULIUS CMSAJl. 359

III. i. Thy master is a wise and valiant Roman,
I never thought him worse.
Tell him so please him come unto this place, &c.

III. ii. Cassius, go you into the other street
And part the numbers.
Those that will hear me speak let 'em stay here 1

These are exactly like the metrical forms assumed in the sur
reptitious issues of the first quartos of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet,
but extremely unlike Shakspere's manner in his complete works. I
have intentionally taken the instances from the middle of continuous
speeches ; but the imperfection more usually occurs at the end of a
speech, as excisions are more frequently made from ends of speeches
than from the middle of them. On this point, also, compare my
edition, of Romeo and Juliet, Qi.

7. Mr E. Simpson has noticed that this play bears the same re
lation to the tragedies that the Two Gentlemen of Verona does to the
comedies as to " once-used " words (once-used in his sense). This is
just what would happen if Jonson edited the play. For his dislike
to " strange words " and his satire on Marston for inventing them, see
Act Y. Sc. 1 of the Poetaster, where Crispinus vomits his linguistic
inventions after the emetic administered by Horace.

8. Shakspere and Jonson probably worked together on Sejanus in
1602-3 (date of Shakspere's writing on another man's play in Taming of
the Shrew : a thing which he never did after, and if before, only in the
cases of Andronicus and Henry VI. \ He having helpt Jonson then
in a historical play, what more likely than that Jonson should be
chosen to remodel Shakspere's history, if it needed to be reproduced
in a shorter form than he wrote it originally.

9. We know that rival theatres and rival publishers in the
Elizabethan times frequently brought out plays on the same subject
close on each other's heels. Thus the old play of Leir was repub-
lisht when Shakspere's Lear was produced : The Danish Tragedy
and Hoffman's Tragedy were run in opposition to Hamlet: The
Taming of the Shrew was a rival piece to Patient Grissel, The .
Woman Kilted with Kindness, and probably Dekker's Medicine for

360 VII. 2. SIGNS OF BEN JONSOU'S WORK IN JULIUS CAESAR.

a Curst Wife : Grissel, and the Woman Killed having come out first,
the Shrew being then set up in rivalry, and the last-named piece
being a retaliation for this opposition. (I do not regard the notice of
Heywood's play in Henslowe's diary as necessarily that of its first
appearance.) But this practice is too well known to require illustra
tion. Is it not, then, highly probable that this play, produced
about 1601 originally, should be revived in 1607, the date of
L. Sterling's Julius Ccesar and of " Cesar's Revenge, or the Tragedy
of Cesar and Pompey" called in the running title " The tragedy of
Julius Cesar "; or if it were produced in 1607, as Malone believes it
was, that the other play was then published in rivalry to it 1 In
any case I think it likely that some production or reproduction was
at that date, and another after Shakspere's death with Jonson's
alterations.

10. There is a stilted feeling about the general style of this play ;
which is not the style of Jonson : but just what one would fancy
Shakspere would become with an infusion of Jonson. I do not give
passages here ; as I look on the printing of long extracts from books
in every one's hands, except for cases of comparison, as useless and
wasteful. I prefer relying on the taste and judgment of those
who will take the trouble to read the play, and judge for them
selves.

1 1 . There is a quarrelling scene in the Maid's Tragedy imitated
from the celebrated one between Brutus and Cassius : just in the
same way Philaster is imitated from Cymbeline. The Maid's Tragedy
was probably produced in 1609, the year after Philaster. It is there
fore not improbable that /. Ccesar was reproduced in the year after, or
at any rate about the same time as Cynibeline, that is, in or close on
1607, just as Shakspere's fourth period began.

12. Act L Sc. 2. " Chew upon this ;" no such expression else
where in Shakspere. Compare the use of " work upon that now "
passim in Eastward Ho, of which Jonson was one of the authors.

13. Act II. Sc. 1. Scorning the base degrees

By which he did ascend.

The word degrees never used by Shakspere, as meaning " stairs,"

VII. 2. SIGNS OF BEN JONSON's WORK IN JULIUS CAESAR. 361

but always of "steps" metaphorical; as we use "gradually" now.
Bat in Sejanus we have :

Whom when he says lie spread on the degrees.
And turn pre-ordinance and first decree ,

14. Into the lane of children. Act III. Sc. 1,

where lane means narrow conceits. Compare Staple of News :

A narrow-minded man ! my thoughts do dwell
All in a lane.

I do not know an instance of such a usage in any other author.

15. Y. v. His life was gentle, and the elements

So mixt in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, " This was a man."

Compare Cynthia's Revells, II. iii. A creature of a most perfect
and divine temper : one in whom the humours and elements are
peaceably met without emulation of precedency (acted in 1600).
Surely Shakspere did not deliberately copy Jonson : but if he wrote
before him Julius Ccesar must come before 1600 into the time of the
historical plays.1

16. Jonson was in the habit of altering plays, e.g. he altered and
adapted Jeronymo by Kyd ; and his share of work in the Widow,
Eastward Ho, and other plays, was evidently of the supervising and
trimming kind, as the main execution of every scene is clearly trace
able to the other writers.

We now come to an important argument :

In a celebrated passage in the Discoveries of Ben Jonson, we
read : " I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour
to Shakspere, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never
blotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a
thousand. Which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told
posterity this, but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to

1 This agrees with the date of allusion discovered by Mr Halliwell ; but the
paucity of rhymes, number of short lines, and brevity of the play are conclusive
as to its not having been produced in its present state at that date. It has
been abridged by some one for theatrical representation : if not by Jonson, then
by some one else. — F. G. F.

362 VII. 2. SIGNS OF BEN JONSON's WORK IN JULIUS CAESAR.

commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted ; and to justify
mine own candour : for I loved the man and do honour his memory
on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and
of an open and free nature ; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions,
and gentle expressions : wherein he flowed with that facility, that
sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped : Sufflaminandus erat,
as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power, would
the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell into those things,
could not escape laughter : as when he said in the person of Caesar,
one speaking to him, ' Caesar, thou dost me wrong.' He replied,
* Csesar did never wrong, but with just cause,' and such like ; which
were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There
was even more in him to be praised than to be pardoned."

It is clear from this passage (1) that a line in Julius Ccesar, as it
originally stood, has been altered from its first form as quoted by
Jonson into

Know, Csesar doth not wrong, nor without cause
Will he be satisfied

(2) That this alteration had been made in the acting copy, pub
lished in Folio in 1623 ; though Jonson' s statement of its being an
alteration was not published till after his death in 1637.

(3) That Jonson gives this as one of "many" instances. We
cannot now find these in Shakspere's works : but it is a fair infer
ence that other similar corrections have been made.

(4) These alterations were not commonly known t1 such an oppor
tunity for what our forefathers called "merry jests" would never
have been lost : we should have had traces of them in contemporary
writing.

We have, then, a play in which one error at least (perhaps many)
has been corrected ; and an author to whom this correction (or these
corrections) was privately known : a play in which there is a defi
ciency of some thousand lines as compared with the others of the same

1 Yet the distinct allusion in The Staple of News (Induction), " Cry you
mercy, you never did wrong but with just cause," shows that in 1625 an allu
sion to this alteration at any rate was well understood. — F. G. F.

VII. 2. SIGNS OF BEN JONSON?S WORK IN JULIUS C^SAR. 363

class by the same author ; and a critic who desired that the author in
his writing had blotted a thousand : a play remarkable for speeches
ending on the second or third beat of an incomplete line, and one
known alteration, with others to be presumed, which introduces this
peculiarity contrary to the author's usual manner : a play with various
peculiar phrases and usages of words ; and the same critic-author in
whose works these peculiar words and phrases are found. Add to
these considerations the spelling of Antony, the use of words in -ed, the
small number of once-used words, and the probability that these two
writers had worked together in Sejanus, and I think there is a
case made out that the play of Julius Ccesar as we have it was
corrected by Ben Jonson : whether it had been produced by Shak-
spere in 1600-1 in a different form or not. If it had, all ques
tions of early allusion are accounted for : and it would be written by
him as a continuation of the series of Histories immediately after
Henry V., to which play the general style of Julius Ccesar seems to
me more like than to any other work of Shakspere : also the pronun
ciation of the final -eds would be accounted for, as this is more fre
quent in Henry IV. and V. than in any other plays next to Ccesar.

It is fair also to consider what would probably have been Ben
Jonson's conduct supposing he had revised this play. Would he
have made any allusion to it such as that in The Staple of News
quoted in the note on the preceding page ] We may judge of this by
a parallel instance. We know that he made alterations in Kyd's
Hieronymo is mad again, or Spanish Tragedy. Accordingly, in the
Induction to Cynthia's Revells Jonson alludes indirectly to the
alterations he had made. Another, he says, swears down all that sit
about him " that the old Hieronymo as it was first acted was the only,
best, and judiciously penned play of Europe." This is just such an
indirect allusion as I have pointed out to the passage in Julius Ccesar
in TJie Staple of News : and so far agrees with what may be expected
in my theory.

Again, the speech of Polonius (Hamlet, iii. 2), " I did enact Julius
Caesar : I was killed in the Capitol : Brutus killed me," seems to me
to allude to Shakspere's play : " played once in the University," it
may be : but if so, by a regular company, not by the students. But

364 VII. 2. SIGNS OF BEN JONSON's WORK IN JULIUS C^SAR.

if this allusion is to Shakspere's play, it distinctly points to an acting
of Caesar's part by an inferior player : which would give us a reason
for the ill success of the piece at its first production. Hamlet's
speech, " It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be
the players ready ? " so strongly contrasts Polonius with the good
actors, that he must, I think, be referring to some actual performer.
May not the play that was " caviare to the general, that pleased not
the million " allude to the same failure ? It can hardly refer to
Sejanus acted in 1603, as it occurs in the first draft of Hamlet, which
was acted probably in 1602, and printed certainly in 1603.

Of course, as I hold the alterations in this play, like those in
Macbeth, to have taken place principally at the ends of speeches,
and specially at the ends of scenes, the proportion of rhymes has
been too seriously interfered with for our tables to be of any use by
way of comparison with other plays of Shakspere. The increased
number of tags in the Middleton part of Macbeth, put in to hide the
alterations, and the diminished number of rhymes in J. Ccesar,
caused by Jonson's abbreviations, alike interfere with the direct
application of the rhyme-test. But to it indirectly I owe the fact
of my attention being called to the very unusual characteristics of
both plays : to it also I owe the determination of one of the authors to
whom these alterations are due : for although Messrs Clark and
Wright, to my great satisfaction, were the first in the field with the
Macbeth theory, my work on Ccesar was done independently. I
should probably not have cared to publish my theory of the latter
play had not they issued theirs of the former; for I know that
people do not like to be told that what they have been admiring all
their lives as pet bits of the finest Shakspere, in many cases turns
out to be spawned by one of those inferior " mushrooms that sprung
up under the Shaksperian oak ; " and that criticism which, however
certain in its method, does not lead to pfe-determined results so as
to satisfy the reader with a show of reasoning in behalf of his former
belief, and leave him in placid but idle content, is no more popular
in this country when applied to literary matters, than it is in other
departments. I am quite prepared for the usual witticisms as to
" arithmetic not being science," " statistics being capable of proving

VII. 2. RELATION OF METRICAL TESTS TO HIGHER CRITICISM. 3G5

anything," " aesthetic being the supreme test," &c. ; because I know
that the truth can only be attained in this by the same kind of in
duction as in other scientific subjects, and that all the tall talk in
the Avorld will never induce any mineralogist, who has been trained
in his work, to give up Wollaston's Goniometer, and depend en
tirely on the first impressions of his eyes and hands, however acute,
subtle, or experienced they may be.

At this point, then, where I reach my first resting-place in the
application of metrical tests, it may be well to say a few words on
their relation to "higher" criticism. If the peculiarities of a writer are
regarded as matters of chance or arbitrary choice, it is absurd to take
them as a basis of investigation : but they are not so : in every writer
there are tricks of style and of metre which unknown to himself per
vade all his work : the skill of the critic lies, first in selecting those
which are really characteristic, and establishing their existence by
adequate proof : then in tracing their gradual development or decay :
and finally in showing their connection with each other and with the
higher mental characters out of which they spring, and to which
they are inseparably attacht. The first part of this task I have
approximately accomplished for Shakspere ; the latter, and far more
difficult one, I have also attempted and shall publish in due course.
I only here desire to record that I have not workt mechanically in
this matter : and that I have studied the psychology of Shakspere
quite as diligently, and I hope as accurately, as I have the statistical
phenomena which are its outcome and indication. As yet I have given
only a diagnosis for individual authors and for individual plays, so as
to classify and form a basis for higher investigations. The anatomy of
each, and the comparative physiology of dramatic authors as a class,
have yet to be given, and then the crowning work, the life history
of our greatest men, as shown in their writings, their dynamical
psychology, will become possible, which (with all deference to the
metaphysical critics who have wasted their great acumen by
beginning at the wrong end) it has not yet been and could not yet be.

I am happy to add that with this paper ends my destructive work,
with which I know some are dissatisfied ; as was to be expected in
the case of results that must offend so many prejudices deep-rooted

3G6 VII. 2. RELATION OF METRICAL TESTS TO HIGHER CRITICISM.

and of long-standing. In the future my work in this matter (if I
have life and opportunity to do any more) will be almost all con
structive or reconstructive. It was unfortunately necessary to take
the work in the order I have chosen, subject to the limitations
imposed on me. I am hence exposed to much criticism that seems
to me premature : to others, who do not know the extent of my
yet unpublisht work, it does not very probably seem so : yet I think
I have been right in going on with the work and leaving criticisms
unanswered : inasmuch, as if I ever finish what I have begun, many
of them will not need answering, being simply based on the partial
ground of an imperfectly expounded and not half-published in
vestigation.

F. G. FLEAY.

[For the Discussion on this Macbeth and Julius Cassar Paper, which was
strongly opposd, see the end of this volume, before the Appendix.]

367

VIII. MR HALLIWELL'S HINT ON THE DATE OF

CORIOLANUS, AND POSSIBLY OTHER

ROMAN PLAYS.

(Read at the Society's 1th Meeting, June 26, 1874.)

MR HALLIWELL — for that is still his name to Shaksperians, though
he is now by law a Phillipps — had long promist me a Letter on the
date of the Roman Plays. But family business, and Stage- and
Shakspere-searches, having prevented him from writing the letter, he
was good enough to tell me last Wednesday-week, June 17, what he
had intended to write, namely, that on comparing the different early
editions — 1579, 1595, 1603, 1612— of Sir Thomas North's english-
ing of Amyot's French translation of Plutarch's Lives, to find out
\vhich of these editions Shakspere used for his Roman plays, he
(Mr Halliwell) had noticed many small differences between these
editions of North, and had in one case, in Coriolanus, hit on a word,
" vnfortunate," altered by the 1612 edition from the former one's
" vnfortunatly," which " vnfortunate " was the word used by Shak
spere in his Tragedy of Coriolanus. This was therefore primd facie
evidence that Shakspere used the 1612 edition of North for his
CorioJanus, if not for his other Roman Plays. Here are the ex
tracts : —

Shakspere. Coriolanus, Act V. Sc. iii. 1. 94-8, Tragedies, p. 27,
or 625, ed. Booth :

Volum. Should we be silent & not speak, our Raiment
And state of Bodies would bewray what life
We Laue led since thy Exile. Thinko with thy selfe,
How more vnfortunate then all lining zvomen
Are we come hither. . .

Sir T. North's Plutarch, 1612, p. 254 :
1 The oration of Voluinnia, vnto her sonne Coriolanus/

TRANSACTIONS. 24

3 08 VIII. ON THE POSSIBLE DATE (l612) OF CORIOLANUS.

Then she spake in this sort : If we held our peace (my sonne)
and determined not to speake, the state of our poore bodies, and
present sight of our raiment, would easily bewray to thee what life
we haue led at home, since thy exile and abode abroad ; but think
now with thy selfe, how much more vnfortunate then all the women
lining, we are come hither. . .

Ed. 1603:

But think now with thy selfe how much more vnfortunately then
all the women lining we are come hither.

Ed. 1595 :

But thiiike now with thy selfe, how much more vnfortunately
then all the women liuing we are come hither.

Ed. 1579 :

But tliinke now with thy selfe, howe much more vnfortunatly,
then all the women liuinge we are come hether.

Coupling this fact with the other that Mr Paton claims to have
establisht,1 namely, that Shakspere's own copy of the 1612 edition
of North's Plutarch, with his initials W. S., is now in the Greenock
Library, we have a strong primd facie case for the use of that edition
by Shakspere in his Coriolanus ; for, as Dyce well says, this Play "is
proved by the style to have been one of the author's latest com
positions." Now, as we know at present no other allusion or entry
to fix the date of Coriolanus, we must all be grateful to Mr Halli-
well for his discovery of the present one. But is the evidence any
thing more than primd facie ? Without doubt, Shakspere may have
alterd the " vnfortunately " of the earlier editions, to the happier " vn
fortunate " of his text, from his own instinct and ear, without seeing
the edition of 1612, just as he alterd, by ear, "the naughtie seede
and cockle of insolencie and sedition " (North, p. 229, ed. 1612) of
the earlier editions (the 1595, a+ least) into

" The cockle of Rebellion, Insolence, Sedition" (Cor. III. i. 70).

1 Mr Skeat tells me this.

VIII. ON THE POSSIBLE DATE (l612) OF CORIOLANUS. 369

But if we compare the long line with " vnfortunately," with
other like ones that Dr Abbott has collected, ShaJc. Gram. p. 405-7,
we may see that it is at least allowable. 1. If the extra syllable is
to come in the middle, the line being scannd with a central pause : —

How more | unfortunately | than all | living | women. — Cor.

Shall I | attend | your lordship ? || at an|y time | fore noon.

M.for M., II. ii. 160 ; see II. iv. 141-2.

For end | ing thee | no sooner. || Thou hast | nor youth | nor age.

M. for M., III. i. 32.

That I | am touch'd | with madness. || Make not | imposjsible.

/&., V. i. 51.

Did in | your name | receive it : || pardon | the fault | I pray.

T. G. of V., I. i. 40.

Be gen|tle grave | unto me. || Bather | on Mjlus mud.

A. and C., V. ii. 58.

2. If the extra syllable is to come at the end, and the beats may
run thus : —

How more | unfor[tunate|ly than | all liv|ing womjen. — Cor.

Upon | our houses' thatch, | whiles a | more fros|ty peop|le.

+Hen. V., III. v. 24.

Unto | a poor | but worth|y gent|leman | she's wed|ded.

Cyml., I. i. 7.

I do | beseech | you, par]don me, | I may | not show | it.

Rich. //., Y. ii. 70.

The monk | might be | receiv'd ; || and that | 'twas dang'|rous for |
him.— Hen. VIII. , I. ii. 179, Shakspere.

Anon | expect | him here; || but if | she be | obdur]ate.

1 Rich. III., III. i. 39.

Neither Mr Halliwell nor I have any desire to special-plead the
point, or to strain the evidence beyond the presumption for the late
date of Coriolanus that it justifies.

370 VIII. ON THE POSSIBLE DATE OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

Mr Halliwell wishes further close collation to be made of the first
four editions of North's Plutarch for all the Lives which Shakspere
used,1 to see whether any more evidence can be got from them as to the
date of any of the Roman Plays. (He also desires a like collation of
all early editions of other Plays, Novels, and books known to have
been used by Shakspere in his dramas.) With legard to the other
Roman Plays, Mr Halliwell has himself put forward evidence (Introd.
to Julius Cvesar) that Julius Ccesar was written by Shakspere " in
or before the year 1601, as appears from the following lines in
Weever's Mirror of Martyrs, printed in that year, lines which unques
tionably are to be traced to a recollection of Shakspere's Drama, not to
that of the history as given by Plutarch :

' The many-headed multitude were drawne
By Brutus' speech, that Caesar was ambitious :
When eloquent Mark Antonie had showne
His vertues, who but Brutus then was vicious 1 '

(quoted by Dyce, vi. 613.)"

This evidence I have not yet had time to consider in connection
with the other external and internal evidence for the date of the play.

Of Antony and Cleopatra we know only that it appeared for the
first time in the Folio of 1623, and that "on May 20th, 1608, 'A
booke called Anthony^nd Cleopatra ' was entered in the Stationers'
Registers by Edward Blount." We may then hope that the colla
tion above mentiond will throw light on the date of this play.

Mr Halliwell desires to turn the attention of our Members to the
necessity of searching for facts and documents, making such collations
as he has iustanct, &c., before they enter on or encourage any
theorizing as to the dates of Shakspere's plays.

F. J. FURNIVALL.

1 This no doubt will be done by Mr Skeat, for his edition of these Lives for
Messrs MacMillan now in preparation.

371

IX. THE POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE IN
SHAKSPEBE'S TIME,

BY RICHARD SIMPSON, ESQ., B.A.
(Read at the Society's 8th Meeting, Friday, 10 July, 1874.)

IN Elizabeth's days, and later, the drama and stage occupied not
only a literary position, but a political one also. The play was the
review of the period. It was only by the stage that the lay politician
could be sure to find his audience. Dramas were part of the ma-
chiner}'- of political propagandism, and malcontents whose ideas were
not realized in the actual government were fond of indulging them
selves with the triumph of their principles exhibited in a private
play. In the eyes of the statesman, the only plea for the stage was
that it amused the people. But the players themselves found their
profit, not in such amusement as the statesman wished, but in re
sponding to the eager passion of the audience, and giving a reply to
the questions of the hour. In 1544 the B^hops were reproached —
4 jSTone leave ye unvexed and untroubled ; no not so much as the
poor minstrels and players of interludes ; so long as they played lies
and sang bawdy songs, blaspheming God and corrupting mens con
sciences, ye never blamed them, but were very well contented ; but
since they persuaded the people to worship the Lord aright, accord
ing to his holy laws and not yours, ye never were pleased with them.'
(Henry Stalbrydge, Epistle exhortatorye &c., 1544.) Sixty years
later we find the same feeling on the part of those in power. Ben
Jonson, in his dedication of Volpone to the two Universities (1607)
says that considering the licence of the writers for the stage he
cannot blame ' the wishes of those severe and wise patriots, who, pro
viding the hurts these licentious spirits may do in a state, desire
rather to see fools and devils and those antique relics of barbarism

372 IX. MR SIMPSON ON THE POTITICAL USE OF THE STAGE.

retrieved, with all other ridiculous and exploded follies, than behold
the wounds of private men, of princes, and nations.' This, by the
by, probably explains the revival at court from time to time of old
moralities and mysteries, and such like * musty fopperies of antiquity.'
Statesmen wanted the stage to be a mere amusement, to beguile the
attention of the hearers from graver matters ; the English stage poets
felt they had a higher mission, and from their wooden pulpit, clad in
their surplice of motley, they preached a varied body of philosophy,
such as no other pulpit ever equalled.

The miscellaneous authors of the period referred to (1585 — 1615)
let us see plainly this property of the theatre. Sidney in his treatise
on poetry, written before 1585, tells us how Tragedy is able to open
the greatest wounds, and show forth Vicers who are covered with
Tissue ; how it maketh kings fear to be tyrants, and tyrants to mani
fest their tyrannical humours. A quarter of a century later, Thomas
Heywood asserted of the English stage, that it had not only refined
our language, but had made the ignorant more apprehensive, had
taught the unlearned the knowledge of many famous histories, had
instructed such as could not read in the discovery of all our English
Chronicles, from the landing of Brute till the current day; had
taught subjects obedience to their king, shown the people the un
timely ends of such as moved tumults and insurrections, and had
presented the flourishing estate of the obedient, thus exhorting men
to allegiance, and warning them from all treason and felony. Be
tween Sidney's day and Heywood's, many writers had enlarged upon
this theme, and many a time had the players received painful warn
ings, that they could only meddle with matters of state and religion
at their peril. But in spite of these warnings, the players persisted
in treating public questions and public persons with the same freedom
as our press treats them now; sometimes caricaturing them, like
Punch —

When Shakspere, Jonson, Eletcher, ruled the stage

They took so bold a freedom with the age,

That there was scarce a knave or fool in town

Of any note, but had his picture shown.

(Sir Ch. Scrope, before 1680.)

IX.

Sometimes reporting their conduct, like a foreign correspondent of
one of our daily papers, as in The Travels of three English brothers,
Sir Thomas, Sir Anthony, and Mr Robert Shirley, by Day, Eowley,
and Wilkins ; sometimes discussing the principles which should
guide politicians, as in plays like Ferrex and Porrex.

The writers and records of the time would enable us to give
rather a full description of the use which was made of the stage by
the ecclesiastical authorities in 1589 to put down the attack directed
against the Church of England by Job Throckmorton under the
pseudonym of Martin Marprelate. The scurrilous pamphlets were
first seriously refuted by Cooper, Bishop of Winchester. But as this
' dry-beating ' had no effect, Archbishop Whitgift, through Bancroft,
engaged a company of town wits, including Lily, Marlowe and Greene,
Keinpe the clown, and Nash the satirist, to enter the lists. Tin's
was according to the advice of the author of ' a whip for an ape '-

And ye grave men that answer Martins mowes,
He mocks the more, and ye in vain lose times,

Leave apes to dogs to bait, their skins to crows,
And let old Lanam lash him with his rhymes.

Old Lanam was the head of one of the companies of actors then
playing in London. The effect of this advice was soon visible.
Martin was, as Nash tells us, ' made a may-game on the stage,' and
the hydra lost his heads * in a famous place [The Theatre] where
every new Bug no sooner puts out his horns, but is beaten down.'
[Nash's Counter cuffe.] In his Pasqvils Return Nash describes how
Vetus Comcedia, the English equivalent of the aristophanic comedy,
* pricked Martin in the right vein/ and how she exhibited him on the
stage, and hints that he could tell a tale of the sly practice that was
used in restraining her. For the licence of the stage had attracted
the notice of Burghley and the Council ; the acting of the boys of St
Paul's was cut short, and the plays of all other companies were put
under a strict censure, which refused to licence the scurrilous comedies
which had been prepared. Lily laments the consequences : ' Would
those comedies might be allowed to be played that are penned, and
then I am sure Martin would be decyphered, and so perhaps dis-

374 IX. MR SIMPSON ON THE POLITICAL USB OP THE STAGE.

couraged.' But in spite of all censorship the stage seems to have
become a bear-garden of angry controversy, and Spenser in his Tears
of the muses, laments the miserable effects of this flood of barbarism
npon the development of the drama.

Between 1589 and 1597 the annals of the stage give us but little
information. In 1591 Sir John Harrington tells us how much good
matter, yea and matter of state, there was in the comedy called The
play of the cards, in which it was showed how four parasitical knaves
robbed the four principal vocations of the Eealm, those of soldiers,
scholars, merchants and husbandmen. * Of which comedy,' says Sir
John, ' I cannot forget the saying of a notable wise counsellor that
is now dead, who, when some (to sing Placebo] advised that it should
be forbidden, because it was somewhat too plain, — yet he would have
it allowed, adding that it was fit that "They which do that they
should not, should hear that they would not." ' In 1592, Verstegan,
the libeller who caused Burghley such pangs, and whom Bacon an
swered, says that the policy of England towards Spain was to make
Philip II. ' odious unto the people, and to that end certain players
were suffered to scoff and jest at him upon their common stages.'
Gabriel Harvey, in his Four letters, published in 1593, tells us how,
when his brother Richard had first frightened and then amused the
world with his false astrological predictions, ( Tarletons jest was not
sufficient, but Iloscius must have his stale to make him more admira
ble.' In April 1595 the English Agent in Edinburgh wrote to Burghley,
how ill King James took it ' that the comedeans in London should
scorn the king and people of Scotland in their play.' The historians
of the period however give us ample reasons for it, such as the offers of
James to the Spaniards, and the reported attempt to assassinate the
Queen. James had written to Philip in 1594, offering to form a
league with him and make war on Elizabeth, if only his own succes
sion to the English throne were guaranteed.

From 1595 we will pass to 1604. In December of that year
Chamberlaine wrote to Winwood — ' The tragedy of Go wry with all
the action and actors hath been twice represented by the kings
players with exceeding concourse of all sorts of people. But whether
the matter or manner be not well handled, or that it be thought that

IX. MB SIMPSON ON THE POLITICAL USE OP THE STAGE. 375

princes should not be played on the stage in their life-time, I hear
that some great counsellors are much displeased with it, and so 'tis
thought shall be forbidden.' Three months later, Calvert wrote to
Winwood, ' The players do not forbear to present upon the stage the
whole course of this present time, not sparing the king, state, or re
ligion, in so great absurdity and with such liberty that any would be
afraid to hear them.' In April 1606 the French Ambassador wrote
to Paris — ' I caused certain players to be forbid from acting the his
tory of the Duke of Biron ; when however they saw that the whole
court had left the town they persisted in acting it ; nay, they brought
upon the stage the Queen of France and Mademoiselle de Veriieuil ;
the former, having first accosted the latter with very hard words,
gave, her a box on the ear. At my suit three of them were arrested ;
but the principal person, the author, escaped. One or two days
before they had brought forward their own king and all his favourites
in a very strange fashion. They made him curse and swear because
he had been robbed of a bird, and beat a gentleman because he had
called off the hounds from the scent. They represent him as drunk
at least once a day. He has upon this made order that no play shall
be henceforth acted in London ; for the repeal of which order they
have already offered 100,000 livres. Perhaps the permission will be
again granted, but upon condition that they represent no recent his
tory, nor speak of the present time' (Von Raumer, ii. p. 219.) To
the same effect speaks the author of a treatise on hunting, of about
this date— (MS. Sloane 3543, fol. 20.) ' What madness is it that
possesseth them [the comedians] under feigned persons to be censur
ing of their Sovereign : surely though their poets for these many
years have for the most part left fools and devils out of their plays,
yet now on the sudden they make them all play the fools most
notoriously and impudently in meddling with him (in way of taxa
tion) by whom they live, and have in manner their very being.'

In 1608, Parrott says that inveighing at private persons had be
come very familiar of late among poets and players, to their cost ;
and in 1612, Hey wood, in his Apology for Actors, disapproves of
abuses then lately introduced, as an inveighing against the state, the
court, the law, the city, and their governments, with the particulariz-

376 IX. MB SIMPSON ON THE POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE.

ing of private men's humours (yet alive), noblemen and others ; and
the liberty which some arrogated to themselves, committing their
bitterness and liberal invectives against all estates to the mouths of
children, supposing their juniority to be a privilege for any railing,
be it never so violent.'

If we turn from this external description of the plays to the plays
themselves, perchance we shall not find the sample come up to the
specification. It will be often difficult to make out the application
even of the plays which raised the greatest hubbub. There are
several reasons why this should be so. Much of the most offensive
matter was an extempore interpolation, which never appeared even
in the theatrical copies of the play. As Shakspere's Cleopatra says

to Iras,

Scald rhymers

Will ballad us out o' tune ; the quick comedians

Extern porally will stage us, and present

Our Alexandrian revels ; Anthony

Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see

Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness —

It would be vain to search Chapman's tragedy of Biron for the pas
sages referred to by the French Ambassador, or Jonson and the other
authors of Eastward Hoe for the libels on the Scots, for which they
were in danger of losing their ears. Again, the voice and counten
ance of the actor conveyed much which is lost in the printed play.
Nash tells Gabriel Harvey that his Musarum Lacrymce was miserably
flouted at in Master Winkfield's comedy of Pedantius. When we
turn to the play we only find an innocent passage, in which the
Pedant declares that he will write a tragedy on the supposed death
of his sweetheart, and call it Lacrymce Musarum. Sometimes per
haps the offensive passages were written or even printed, and after
wards effectually suppressed. No copy is now extant of the original
impression of Greene's Cloth Breeches, which contained the attack
on the Harvey family.

But the chief reason why these attacks are not plain on the sur
face of the plays is, that they were not open, but covert. From the
nature of the case they could only be indirect. And here the poets

IX. MR SIMPSON ON THE POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. 377

were helped by the old theory, which Sir John Harrington in his
Apology of Poetry propounded afresh for the benefit of the English.
' The ancient poets/ he says, ' have indeed wrapped as it werein their
writings divers and sundry meanings, which they call the senses or
mysteries thereof. Eirst of all, for the literal sense (as it were the
utmost bark or rind), they set down in manner of a history the acts
and notable exploits of some persons worthy memory ; then in the
same fiction, as a second rind and somewhat more fine, as it were
nearer to the pith and marrow, they place the moral sense, profitable
for the active life of man, approving virtuous actions, and condemn
ing the contrary. Many times also under the selfsame words they
comprehend some true understanding of natural philosophy, or some
times of politic government, and now and then of divinity: and
these same senses that comprehend so excellent knowledge we call
the Allegory, which Plutarch defineth to be when one thing is told,
and another is understood.' The passion for this allegory was uni
versal in Shakspere's day. Not a poet or a statesman — scarcely any
man of note then lived, but had one or more pastoral names, and his
deeds were narrated, or his qualities were discussed in parables. The
most popular poem of the day, Spenser's Faery Queen, was one great
Allegory. Its knights were personified virtues ; its ladies, the best
of them, were meant for Queen Elizabeth ; its ' blatant beast ' was
Puritanism, as Jonson told Drummond. The most celebrated Rom
ances of the period such as Philip Sidney's Arcadia were of similar
character. Barclay's Argenis was in its inner sense a defence of
the divine right of Henri IV. to the crown of France, and what
curious political abstractions were personified in some of the figures
may be read in the clavis appended to the book.

This habit of covert allusion to matters which, openly treated,
might have subjected authors and speakers to all kinds of punish
ments — for libel, scandal, offence to Queen and Council, even felony
and treason, — hatched a whole class of men whom we may call in-
telligencing interpreters. The intricate penal legislation of the time
fostered a great crop of informers, and these interpreters and decy-
pherers were a species of that genus. Nash had to complain of their
treatment of his famous Pierce Pennilesse l Poor Pierce Peimilcsse

378 IX. MR SIMPSON ON THE POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE.

have they turned into a conjuring book ; for there is not a line in it
with which they do not seek to raise up a ghost .... Fables were
free for any bondman to speak in old time .... their allusion was
not restrained to any particular humour of spite, but generally applied
to a general vice. Now a man may not talk of a dog, but it is sur
mised he aims at him that giveth the dog in his crest \ he cannot
name straw, but he must pluck a wheat-sheaf in pieces ' (Strange
News, 1592. sig. B.) — lit spite of this implied protest, no reader will
believe that Nash meant any one but the recently dead Earl of Lei
cester by the Bear in Pierce Pennilesse. The same author, in the pro
logue to his play Summer's last Will and Testament thus addresses
these interpreters : ; Moralizers, you that wrest a never-meant mean-
Ing out of everything, applying all things to the present time, keep
your attention for the common stage ; for here are no quips in cha
racters for you to read.' The play was privately acted by the child
ren of Paul's in WhitgifVs Hall at Croydon. Nash makes the
children declare that the common stages, where the companies of
men actors played, were the places for allusions such as the decypher-
ers might interpret. When Jonson produced his Poetaster, he intro
duced it with two prologues ; the first was spoken by Envy, who
says she has been looking out for the play,

To blast your pleasures

With wrestings, comments, applications,

Spy-like suggestions, privy whisperings, &c.

She is disappointed that the scene is laid in Home, not London, but
this will not baffle her —

How might I force this to the present state 1
Are there no players here? no poet apes'? ....
Either of these could help me ; they could wrest
Pervert and poison all they hear and see
With senseless glosses and allusions.

And in truth, Jonson was informed against for the play, and only
escaped by the mediation of Richard Martin with the Chief Justice.
Against this danger the poets' resources were ever to make their

IX. MR SIMPSON ON THE POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. 379

allusions more difficult to identify, and ever to be ready to swear
that they meant no harm. Chamberlain in a letter dated March 5,
1600, tells us how Babington, Bishop of Worcester, preaching at
Court on the previous Sunday, made many proffers and glances on
behalf of the Earl of Essex, then in disgrace, ' as he was understood
by the whole auditory and by the Queen herself, who presently call
ing him to a reckoning for it, he flatly forswore that he had any such
meaning.' What the prelates might do, poets would even more
easily permit themselves to do. Decker in the Satiro-mastix re
proaches Jonson.

— your dastard wit will strike at men
In corners, and in riddles fold the vices
Of your best friends.

But then, after thus flirting ink in a man's face you will (he says)
' crawl into his bosom, and damn yourself to wipe it off again ' — of
course by forswearing the application. This was even then a prac
tice of venerable antiquity. Richard Edwardes, who died in 1566,
protests that the political allusions of his Damon and Pytliyas have
no reference to the English Court : —

Wherein, talking of courtly toys, we do protest this flat,
We talk of Dionysius' court, we mean no court but that.

But his allusions are too plain to allow his readers to be taken in by
his protests. Edwardes's example was followed by most of the
writers of political plays ; and their abjurations are about as credible
as his.

Those who wish to sound the depths of obscurity into which
this habit of riddling led, should read Gabriel Harvey's prose and
poetry written against Nash. He is full of allusions to contemporary
men and things, but his language is so generalized that even his con
temporaries could not understand him ; and Nash, in answering him,
was forced to own that he could not make out whom he meant by
the ' excellent gentlewoman ' who was to take up the cudgels in
Harvey's favour. His writings are a dark wood where searchers for
allusions may find an endless supply of mares-nests. Mr Gerald

380 IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. § 1. POLITICAL GENERALITIES.

Massey applied to Shakspere a long passage which Nash, evidently in
the right, applied to himself. The learned civilian was much too
cunning to be understood. And the poets did not come much be
hind him in the art of darkening counsel ; as Churchyard sings of
them :

Thousands know not what they mean, when they in clouds will
walk.

There are however plays enough where the allusions are too plain to
be mistaken. I will go through a few of them, and put them into
classes. (1) And first I will name a few dramas which deal with some
general political rules; which seem to aim at teaching political
philosophy in the abstract, without much reference to the concrete in
terests of the country. Of this kind is our earliest regular tragedy,
Gorboduc, or Ferrex and Porrex, 1561. The first three acts are by
Norton, Archbishop Cranmer's son-in-law, parcel-poet with Sternhold
and Hopkins, rack-master at the Tower, Lawyer and Member of Par
liament, — a miscellaneous-minded man. Each of his acts of the play
teaches a set lesson in politics ; the first, the mischief of a divided
rule ; the second, the poison of flattering counsel ; the third, the calam
ity of ill-advised misgovernment, and of the dissension of brethren in
the royal family. At the fourth act, a true poet, Sackville, takes up
the thread of the discourse ; his portion enters into interests of the
day, and the chorus clenches his arguments. The fifth act is a really
powerful summary of the state of England in 1561 or 1562 (the date
of the play), and the prophetic eye of the statesman-poet is justified
by the events of 1569. There is much also upon the mischief of
having no designate heir to a crown — the great spectre of Elizabethan
statesmen.

Damon and Pytliyas (before 1566), though disclaiming all con
nection with England, yet satirizes the well-known characters of the
time, the evil spawn of the cruel laws, the 'blood-sucker,' the
1 common accuser/ and introduces a good counsellor Eubulus, who
gives much more sound and liberal advice than Norton and Sackville.

Tancred and Gismunda, partly by Hatton, afterwards Lord Chan
cellor, was acted before Queen Elizabeth in 1568. It is remarkable

IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. §2. SPECIAL POLITICAL ALLUSIONS. 381

for its protests against tyranny, and for the hateful display of a tyrant
in the person of Tancred, with his simple maxims, such as

' This is the soundest safety for a king,
To cut off all that vex or hinder him.'

Tancred introduces us to what was the great political bugbear of the
16th century — The Macchiavellian. Marlowe confesses in his pro
logue that he means his Jew of Malta to exhibit that ideal ; and from
this we may see that Selimus in the Tragical reign of Selimus some
time Emperor of the Turks, Aaron in Titus Andronicus, and other
characters in other plays, including perhaps lago in Othello, are in
tended for exhibitions of the hated and dreaded ideal. Most of them
have this in common, that they confide their atrocious intentions and
principles to the audience with the flattest simplicity and most
elaborate self-analysis. Middleton's play The Old Law belongs to
this type of political dramas.

(2) The next type of political dramas is where the political doc
trine, instead of being idealized and generalized, is obviously meant to
apply to some great event, or burning controversy of the day. Almost
all Lily's plays come within this category. The earliest, Campaspe,
was probably exhibited before the Queen on 12th Night, 1582-3. It
exhibits the heroism of Alexander in resigning the love of Campaspe
to devote himself to his Imperial duties. Elizabeth loved to be com
pared to Alexander and Ceesar, and liked to be called king. She had
at this time finally given up all negotiations for her marriage with the
Duke of Anjou, and quite agreed with Lily, when he told her that
all her glories were 'not so honourable as the subduing of these
thoughts.' His next play, Sapho and Phao, was probably exhibited
before her on Shrove Tuesday, March 3, 1583-4. It strikes the same
chord as Campaspe. Sapho is queen of Sicily, the triangular island,
which is the common pastoral representative of England. She is
struck with a passionate love for Phao, a ferryman. But Venus in
jealousy makes her indifferent to him, and he departs the realm in
despair. In the next play, Endimion, acted before the Queen at
Greenwich on Candlemas night, Feb. 2, probably in 1590-1, Elizabeth,
as usual, is Cynthia. Endimion is one of her nobles whose favour

382 IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. § 2. SPECIAL POLITICAL ALLUSIONS.

has suffered a long eclipse, and who is at length awakened from his
trance hy her kiss. Gallathea, played at Greenwich Jan. 1, or
March 25, 1591 (probably) exhibits the Queen as Diana troubled
with the love affairs of the ladies of her court. A second plot tells of
the abolition of certain dues paid by the Lincolnshire people for the
drainage of their fens.

One of Lily's plays, perhaps the earliest of them, The Woman in
the Moon, is the antipodes of his courtly plays ; its design is to cen
sure Elizabeth for her skittish treatment of her lovers. Lily, as might
be expected, appears to have got into great trouble for this sally,
though the name which he gave the Queen, Pandora, remained
afterwards one of her recognized pastoral titles.

In Midas we have another vein opened. It was played before
the Queen Jan. 6, 1590-1. Midas is Philip II. of Spain, Lesbos is
England, which he strives to conquer. As in the Persce of ^Eschylus,
the English song of triumph finds expression in the moans of the
vanquished monarch. ' Why did I covet to get so many crowns 1 . . .
Those that took small vessels at sea I accounted Pirates ; and myself
that suppressed whole fleets, a conqueror .... When I call to mind
my cruelties in Lycaonia, my usurping in Getulia, my oppression in
Sola ; then do I find neither mercies in my conquests, nor colour for
my wars, nor measure in my taxes .... Have I not made the sea
to groan under the number of my ships ; and have they not perished1?
.... Have I not enticed the subjects of my neighbour princes to
destroy their natural kings ? . . . . To what kingdom have I not
pretended claim ? . . . . making every trifle a title .... A bridge
of gold did I mean to make in that island where all my navy could
not make a breach .... but I am become a scorn to that petty
prince. Petty prince ? ISTo ' — and then Midas breaks out into a hymn
of praise to his sister-in-law and enemy. After criticisms by Midas1
own shepherds (his ministers and poets) upon his policy, the play
ends with an oracle recommending him to ally himself with Eliza
beth ; — in other words, it backs up the Cecils' policy of a peace with
Spain.

Philip II. perhaps had previously been pointed at in a play of much
more fame than Midas. The spectators of Marlowe's Tamburtam, the

IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. § 2. SPECIAL POLITICAL ALLUSIONS. 383

blaspheming conqueror who arrogated to himself universal dominion,
and made conquered princes draw his chariot, must have seen in him
the Spanish monarch, who, when the play was produced (in 1587),
was already preparing his armada. Elizabeth, seven years before,
had said to Mauvissiere the French Ambassador, ' The King of
Spain wants to make himself king of the whole world.'

Among other plays relating to Spain and her king, I may men
tion Stucley, which contains fragments of an older play relating to
Don Antonio, and the Spanish usurpation of the crown of Portugal
after the deaths of Don Sebastian and his uncle the Cardinal. Also
A larum for London or the Siege of Antwerp,1 setting forth the
cruelties of the Spaniards, their careless breaches of all English
treaties, and showing in conclusion the necessity of keeping up a
standing army to repel them.

In the year 1589 a series of plays began against the Puritans and
the Martinists. I do not know that many of them are extant. Cer
tainly one of them is, A merry knock to know a knave, an old play
exhibiting the knavery of the four sons of the Bailiff of Hexham,
who represent four classes, the cony-catcher, the farm.er, the clergy
man, and the courtier, which was furbished up perhaps by Greene
and ISTash to show up the ' pure precisians ' of the day. The priest
represents the puritanical clergy as they appeared to Whitgift and
his court. He speaks out with the native candour which Greene and
his consorts thought it natural and reasonable to attribute to their
rascals, who not only take the audience into their confidence, but
also analyze and condemn their own conduct from the virtuous man's
point of view.

Thus preach we still unto our breth-e-ren,
Though in our heart we never mean the thing,
Thus do we blind the world with holiness,
And so by that are termed pure Precisians.

In opposition to this we have Robert Wilson's play of the Gob
blers Prophecy, inspired by Richard Harvey, who alludes to it in his

1 See my edition of it.
TRANSACTIONS. 25

384: IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. § 2. SPECIAL POLITICAL ALLUSIONS.

Plain Percival the Peacemaker. The cobbler Ealph, who is clearly
meant for the famous Christopher or Cuthbcrt Cliffe, is sent as a
prophet to warn all states and degrees of men of their sins. The end
is, that even the University scholar is converted by him, and says,

Now see I that this simple-witted man,

This poor plain cobbler, truly did divine.

The Gods, when we refused the common means

Sent by their oracles and learned priests,

liaise up some man contemptible and vile,

In whom they breathe the pureness of their spirits

And make him bold to speak and prophesy.

Like most essays at popularizing the via media, this play failed
(Fortuna crudelis is the note at the end). The Antimartinist plays
carried all before them. ' Such is the public reputation of their
plays,' says Gabriel Harvey .(Pierce 's Supererogation) ; * he must
needs be discouraged whom, they decypher. Better anger an hun
dred other, than two such [Lily and Greene] that have the stage at
commandment.'

We have seen how King James complained of stage libels against
the Scots in 1595. Long before that, Greene wrote his play James
IV., quite audacious in its political allusions. He speaks out thus :
' In the year 1520 was in Scotland a king over-ruled with parasites,
misled by lust, and many circumstances too long to trattle on now,
much like our court of Scotland this day.' The fourth scene of the
fifth act is a mere critical satire on the times, the policy of the court,
and the manners and customs of the professional classes. Curiously
enough, the clergy are spared. The play was written either before
1589, when Greene was engaged by Bancroft to bully the Puritans,
or, if after that date, for a company of players who refused to admit
his broad abuse of a section of the clergy. I place it in 1585 or 1586.

Dido, left by Marlowe at his death in 1593 for Nash to complete,
dwells on the Queen's manoeuvres to keep ^Eneas at her court. Those
who knew Elizabeth's ways of keeping her favourites, like Essex, from
joining dangerous expeditions, as narrated in Eulke Greville's Life of
Sidney, must have made the obvious application of the drama.

IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. § 2. SPECIAL POLITICAL ALLUSIONS. 385

There are two periods, one the years 1592-3, the other the years
1597-9, when the severity of taxation raised much murmuring in
England. At the former date, these oppressions were noted in the
pamphlets known as * The Caecilian Republic,' and find some record in
the state papers of the period, [see Domestic, Eliz., Vol. 240, No. 143,
and 1592, July, No. 99]. For the latter date we have abundant
notices in Chamberlain's amusing correspondence, 1597 was the year
of Raleigh's expedition to the Azores, and of Elizabeth's subsidy to
Henri IV. for the re-capture of Amiens. The Parliament granted
extraordinary supplies, beseeching, as in 1593, that their contribution
should not be drawn to a precedent. In 1598 Burleigh died, leaving
the Queen's coffers so bare that there was but £20,000 to be found,
and she was fain to demand of the city £40,000, of which only the
half could be furnished. Shortly after, money again was at so low
an ebb, that notwithstanding all the subsidies, privy seals, and the*
loan of £20,000, the Queen was in hand to borrow £150,000 more ;
the merchants and aldermen of the city were sent for and dealt
withal severally, and urged to lend, some £3000, some £2000, some
more, some less. Men mused how the Queen should be driven to
these straits. Many of the citizens would shrink and pull in their
horns, but they were obliged to furnish their quota; and it was
whispered that, when this was done, a benevolence would be asked.
A month later, as the money wanted could not be drawn from the
rich, the mean were attacked, and the government began cerdonihics
esse timendus. In Feb. 1599, Chamberlain writes — 'here is a bene
volence demanded of the lawyers, not only of the inns of court, but
of all manner of officers and clerks of the Exchequer, Chancery, Star-
chamber, King's Bench, Common Pleas, Court of Wards, Duchy of
Lancaster, Auditors, Receivers, and the rest, not forgetting the poor
doctors of Arches. There was some courtesy made at the first, but in
the end they must give down their milk ; and whether from them it
shall proceed over all England is doubtful.'

I shall have much to say in another paper about the revival at
this juncture of Shakspere's Richard II. with its denunciations of
that king's taxations. Now I will only give two examples of plays
made with the dutiful intention of reconciling the lieges to the

386 IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. § 2. SPECIAL POLITICAL ALLUSIONS.

extortions of the exchequer. The first is The life and death of Jack
Strawe, published in 1593, a drama whose sole object is to show
both the futility and wickedness of people's rebelling against the
benevolences and other imposts laid upon them. In 1598, the Earl
of Derby's players and Thomas Heywood the dramatist came to the
aid of the government with the play of Edward IV. and Jane
Shore. In the first part of it, a patriotic tanner, Hobbs, is willing to
empty his pockets for the king, but recommends a reformation in the
matter of monopolies. ' I like not these patents j they that do have
them, as the priests did in old time, buy and sell the sins of the people.
So they made the king believe they mend what's amiss, and for
money they make the thing worse than it is. ... 'Tis pity that one
subject should have in his hand that might do good to many through
the land.' In Act IV. Sc. iv. we have a benevolence, at which
'the old hunks Grudgen grumbles,, but Hobbs and the patriots throw
away their gold like spendthrifts. Aston, the presiding justice, says,

Where . . . our lawful sovereign

Might have exacted or imposed a tax,

Or borrowed greater sums than we can spare,

(For all we have is at his dread command)

He doth not so ; but mildly doth entreat

Our kind benevolence, what we will give

With willing minds, towards this mighty charge.

and Grudgen replies — ' Here's old polling, subsidy, fifteen, soldiers,
and for the poor.' Heywood took the courtier's side ; the danger of
attacking the Englishman's pocket was well known — ' Plebis Angliae
ingenium ad seditiones prseceps, si pensitationibus extra ordinem
opprimatur,' said Burleigh (Camden, Annals, 1598). But necessity
has no law ; the money was needed ; and the theatre was used to
soothe the discontent as far as it might.

The tragedy of the Earl of Essex in 1601 caused quite a com
motion on the stage. The popularity of the Earl in London was such,
that although stringent orders for bridling the theatres were issued
in 1601, the authorities of the city, in direct contradiction to all
previous practice on their part, were extremely slack in enforcing

IX. POLITICAL USE OP THE STAGE. § 2. SPECIAL POLITICAL ALLUSIONS. 387

the orders. And the players, thus connived at, while still a chance
seemed to remain of a reconciliation of the Earl with the Queen,
flattered Essex and his party by taking the most favourable view of
his disgrace. Thus Thomas Heywood's Royal king and loyal subject
exhibits an Earl Marshal, faithful to the sovereign, but hated by
the counsellors, subjected at their instigation to the most extravagant
injuries to test his loyalty. He had saved the king's life, and the
king had given him a promise (like Essex' famous ring)

' If ever, by like chance of war,
Law's forfeiture, or our prerogative
Thy life come in like danger, here we swear ....
As thou for us, we'll ours engage for thee.'

Lut the courtiers persuade the king that the Marshal's virtues are
but practices to outshine the monarch, to be solely popular, to gain
the people's suffrage. His train, they say, equals the king's ; his
chamber is thronged with store of suitors ; when he is in court, all
eyes are bent on him ; and there is no talk abroad but of his military
prowess. The king replies,

We observe him,
His popularity ; how affable
He 's to the people ; his hospitality,
Which adds unto his love ; his forwardness
To entertain ambassadors and feast them.

So the Marshal is degraded from his offices, which are given to his
rivals ; he is banished from court ; his children are taken away, and
at last he is tried for treason. But all ends happily ; the charges of
treason are retorted on his calumniators ; and the king embraces him,
and says,

Our noble Marshal, kinsman, and our friend,
In our two virtues, after-times shall sing
A loyal subject and a royal king.

The play was produced about 1600. Its evident reference to current
politics enables us to guess the meaning of other plays, more enig-

388 IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. § 2. SPECIAL POLITICAL ALLUSIONS.

matical. For instance, the play of Patient Grizzel exhibits the
triumph of a wife and subject whose fidelity and generosity are
tested by the most extravagant disgraces, at the suggestion of sub
servient courtiers and envious rivals. The date of Patient Grizzel
is Dec. 1, 1599. As the fermentation in men's minds increased, the
players intervened still more effectively. Elizabeth was to be Richard
II., and the play of Richard II. was played forty times in London to
accustom men's minds to the catastrophe. But when the catastrophe
had come, their tune was altered. They revived the old play of
Phaethon for the court. They exhibited the fall of Cardinal Wolsey ;
plays were written on Pontius Pilate, and on Judas, and on The
overthrow of rebels ; and a French history of the Unfortunate General
was dramatised. But all the players did not promote this reaction.
To the Essexian plays, belongs the biographical play of Thomas Lord
Cromwell : Cromwell was Earl of Essex, and it is easy to see how the
character and fate of the minister of Henry VIII. are adapted so as to
fit the history of the favourite of Henry's daughter. But perhaps
the most striking instance of this kind of apology for Essex is Daniel's
Philotas. There is no mistaking the hero. Daniel had already
eulogized the Earl in 1595 as ' the Mercury of peace, the Mars of war.'
In the edition of the Civil war published in 1609, when Salisbury
reigned instead of Essex, this eulogy was left out. But let us hear
Philotas—

Shall I degrade the opinion of my worth
By putting off employment . . .

. . . whilst other men set forth
To get the start of action I have won 1 . . .
Alas, what popular dependencies
Do I retain 1 Can I shake off the zeal
Of such as do, out of their kindness,
Follow my fortunes in the common-weal ?

It is in vain he is warned against false friends, and advised,

In courts men longest live and keep their ranks
By taking injuries and giving thanks.

IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. § 2. SPECIAL POLITICAL ALLUSIONS. 389

He must, lie says, always show himself in his own colours — .

Nor can I patiently endure this fond

And strange proceeding of authority,

That hath engrossed all up into their hand,

By idol-living feeble majesty,

And impiously do labour all they can

To make the king forget he is a man,

"Whilst they divide the spoils. . .

Those hands that guard and get us what is our,

The soldiery, — ... in worse case seem.

For these poor souls . . . remain neglected,

And nothing shall bring home of all these wars

But empty age, and bodies charged with scars.

He is warned that this is nothing but jealousy ; that if he could
displace his rivals he would do as they ; and that he ought, therefore,
rather to ' embrace the times,' than ' swell and do no good.' But he
scorns to climb by shaking hands with the unworthy age, and trusts
to his past services to keep his neck. He will not ' run with the
state,' nor ' combine with those who abuse ' it. He will not conform
to the rest of the court, nor clip his wings which are greater than
their nest. So he falls.

No wonder that the play was, as Daniel says, on its first appear
ance, subject to a wrong application, which forced him to publish an
apology, wherein he urges that the subject of the play had been chosen
eight years, and three acts written four years since, and near half-a-year
before the late tragedy, and that the play was intended to be privately
performed at Bath. He says — ' and for any resemblance that through
the ignorance of the history may be applied to the late Earl of Essex,
it can hold in no proportion but only in his weaknesses, which I would
wish all that love his memory not to revive. And for mine own
parts, having been particularly beholden to his bounty, I would to
God his errors and disobedience to his sovereign might be buried.'
I do not see what motive Daniel could have had in 1605 for this
disclaimer, except the fear of offending Salisbury, who, if Philotas is
"Essex, is probably the perfidious Craterus. The poet's safest plan

300 IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. § 3. SOCIAL ALLUSIONS.

evidently was, to follow the example of Bishop Babington, and to
forswear all application.

(3) Another great topic of the drama was the vices of the day —
either the general vices of all classes, or the special vices of soldiers,
lawyers, courtiers, or the like. Of the former kind of dramas were
the old moralities, which were onslaughts on vice in general, without
any special application, and which were therefore restored from time
to time under Court patronage, when the common stages had become
too special. Thus the old play of Liberality and Prodigality was
revived at Court in 1602. Some of these plays are not without a
good deal of merit. Among such, I may mention Nobody and Some
body, and The Return from Parnassus, expressly written against
Simony, and Greene and Lodge's Looking-glass for London, though
this almost comes into the category of special attacks, from its evident
impersonation of the philosophic school of Raleigh, Hariot, the Earl
of Northumberland, &c., in the character of one of the Magi. In
this class also must be placed the murder plays, a species by them
selves ; some notorious murder was dramatized, and treated so as to be
a warning against similar attempts. Thus we have the Warning for
fair Women, on the murder of Sanders, a London Merchant, by Cap
tain Browne, with the guilty knowledge of Sanders' wife. A similar
play is Arden of Feversham ; The Yorkshire Tragedy is another.
The two last have been attributed to Shakspere ; the first was played
by his company of actors. Among those which attack the vices of
special classes may be mentioned the Pedler's Prophecy, a curious old
play, I suspect by Crowley, the editor of Piers Plowman, which, be
sides its attack on general vices, shows up the particular faults of
mariners, merchants, travellers, artificers, landlords, interpreters of
scriptures, justices, and others. The oppressions of landlords, and
their racking their rents was a very favourite subject; the list of
plays in which they form one of the chief ingredients would be a
very long one.

In Day's ' Isle of GulsJ 1606, the prologue declares that the play
is so called not out of any ( dogged ' disposition (a reference to Nash's
Isle of Dogs (1597) which was an attack upon 'our feared lordlings
crying villany,' and for which Nash was persecuted and imprisoned),

IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. § 4. PERSONAL ALLUSIONS. 391

nor that it figures any certain state or private government — neither
* is the play anything critical/ nor ' are lawyers fees and citizens wives
laid open in it,' nor is vice anatomized, nor any great man's life cha
ractered in it. But in spite of this disclaimer, it is hard to say what
is meant for a satire, if the character of Manasses is not meant to be a
skit on the clergy. So The Dumb Knight by Jarvis Markham and
Lewis Machin, 1608, must be taken as an attack on the lawyers ; and
no wonder that, as we are told in the introductory epistle, ' by help of
intelligences, envy had made strange misconstructions ' of it. One
other play should be specially mentioned — the Histriomastix : it is a
savage attack upon actors, and upon their own poet Post-haste, who is
identified with Shakspere in this way — he is the author of a play on
Troilus, of which these lines addressed to Cressida are a portion :

Behold behold, thy garter blue,
Thy knight his valiant elbow wears,
That, when he shakes his furious spear e,
The foe in shivering fearful sort
May lay him down in death to snort.

Some day I hope to show you that it is very probable that this
play was originally written by Peele against Shakspere and the actors
in 1592 or 1593, and altered, still with the same intention, by Marston
while an admirer of Ben Jonson, in 1601 or 1602. Any how,
it is an f allusionist ' play that merits the most attentive study of the
New Shakspere Society.

(4) This play introduces us to a fresh class of dramas — those which
aim at the satirical representation of individual statesmen, or other
men of mark. Here I may once more refer to the Essex series of
plays. Another such series, more to the present point, is the list
of plays connected with the quarrel of Ben Jonson with Decker,
Marston, and the actors of the ' common stages.' It is well known
that Carlo Buifone in Every man out of his humour is Marston. In
Cynthia's revels, ' Amorphus, or the Deformed,' evidently represents
the person mentioned in Much Ado, as * one Deformed,' ' a vile thief
this seven year.' In the Poetaster, Crispinus and Demetrius are

392 IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. § 4. PERSONAL ALLUSIONS.

Marsfcon and Decker ; in Decker's reply (Satiromastix) Horace is Ben
Jonson; William Rufus probably Shakspere. Father Chapman's
All Fools will be seen to belong to this series, when the reader knows
enough of the circumstances to discover the allusions. To return to
Jonson. Catiline is clearly Eobert Catesby, the Gunpowder plotter ;
— Cicero (who by congruity should be Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury)
says to him

"Was I deceived, Catiline,
Or in the fact, or in the time, the hour ?
I told too in the Senate that thy purpose
Was, on the fifth o' the kalends of November
To have slaughtered this whole order : which my caution
Made many leave the city. Canst thou here
Deny, but this thy black design was hinder'd
That very day by me ?

I have already referred to one of Lodge's plays ; that which he wrote
in conjunction with Greene; the allusions in it to the Earl of
Northumberland's philosophical academy are plain enough. His
other play, The Wounds of Civil War, is on a subject which exercised
many pens among playwrights from 1592 to the end of Elizabeth's
reign. It is a comparison between the government of the old, and
that of the young. Marius is the old statesman, who says

These silver hairs that hang upon my face

Are witnesses of my unfeigned zeal —

— His ' years have taught

Him how to pluck so proud a younker's plumes — '

Sylla, who is also Essex, is the younker who calls the old mail * grey
beard.' The object of the play is thus explained :

— Wherein consists this strife?
Eorsooth, the younger citizens will rule ;
The old men's heads are dull and addle now,
And in elections youth will bear the sway.

The personal application of all this is shown in Lodge's Eclogue of

IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. § 5. POLITICAL ABJURATION. 393

Phil ides and Eglon ; where Eglon is Burghley, who gives his reasons
for resigning the cares of state : —

— Mine actions misconceived, my zeal esteemed impure,
My policy deceit ....

And this late purchased age, (besides all other pains)
Is subject to contempts, accused of avarice.
And youth, with self-conceit hath so bewitch'd his brain
As he esteemeth years wits chiefest prejudice.

Since Burghley's ill conduct of the Spanish war in 1588, when, as
Mr Motley shows, his parsimony, but for ill-merited luck, had exposed
the empire to ruin, and when the Lord Admiral Howard wrote
about him to Walsingham, ' Pray God we have not to curse for this
an old grey-beard with a white head/ the old minister had been the
butt of many a satirist, and his foibles were the subject of many
writings now extant. His stinginess to poets, like Spenser ; his
hostility to the stage ; his own wealth, and his economical manage
ment ; his habit of starving wars, and leaving generals without the
means of reaping the full benefit of their victories ; his universal
interference, and his inflated and affected Euphuism, made him
unpopular with all but his own flatterers ; but his power secured him
plenty of these ; and it is only by studying him in his own remains,
and in what is said of him by his enemies, that we can understand
how Corambis or Polonius could come to be the stage representative
of the old politician, who had a ridiculous side, like most other men ;
though historians (except Mr Motley) have been loth to believe it,
much more to expose it.

(5) Finally, even the emphatic repudiation of all politics, or more
specially, of any definite policy, is often in itself political. Thus
when Marston, in Jack Drum's Entertainment, says that the cry
'what news at court' has become the common food of prate, and
that the council's care is trodden on, and every fool indulges in con
jectures, fears, preventions, and discourses confidently on 'peace with
SpainJ we know what he means. He means that he is not going to
join the Essexian party, which, according to Robert Cecil, in his
speech at the private arraignment of Essex after his return from

39-1 IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. § 5. POLITICAL ABJURATION-

Ireland, was then casting out its libels, ' we must have peace with
Spain , then what shall become of the soldiers.' So the entire freedom
from all . political allusions in the Cobbler's Holiday, a play chosen
for court representation in that dangerous time, is itself political,
especially when we consider its indirect teaching, that the Londoners
are quite as great men, socially and politically, as the landed nobles.
The Moral of Liberality and Prodigality is another of these courtly
plays, in which the prologue says,

To pulpits we refer divinity

And matters of estate to council boards.

To this category perhaps it would be best to refer plays which in
themselves have no political meaning at all, but become political
simply from the circumstances of the time of their production, as
Tamburlain in 1587, Dido in 1593, and Patient Grizzel in 1599, as
referred to above, pp. 382, 384, and 388. The subject of a play may
be political in itself, either as suggesting a parallel of past with pre
sent events, or as necessitating a treatment applicable to those events.
Thus the choice of Richard II. as subject for a drama in 1592 or
1598 would have a political meaning, although in the abstract there
is nothing political in a play writer showing how that king fell by
over-taxing his subjects.

Fortunatus, another play at court about 1601, seems quite inno
cent of all political allusion. But in those days could Fortunatus
and his fate be played without a hidden reference to Essex and his
catastrophe 1 Fortunatus also ends like an endless number of court
plays of the period with a prayer for the Queen's immortality. In
these plays she was Diana, Cynthia, Pandora, Arete, Astrsea,
Alexander, Csesar, — any one in short whose name could echo a note
of adulation. Any subject that was chosen, even though it were
JSTero or Ahab, was treated in such a way as to prove that ' No Prince
is so bad as not to make monarchy seem the best form of government.'
(Edmund Bolton, dedication of Nero Ccesar to James I.) In those
times the courtly writer would naturally make the Monarch's person
the central figure of all political essays. Abstract principles of
government (unless they were so treated as to lead to the foregone

IX. POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE. § 5. POLITICAL ABJURATION. 395

conclusion), foreign politics, taxation, the distribution of pOAver, were
subjects in the index exnurgatorius of the court. The courtier would
praise whatever existed, and would represent the grievance of the
hour as the wisest possible mitigation of a calamity which but for
the existing grievance would press with tenfold weight. In propor
tion as the dramatist's criticism was directed to these and kindred
subjects, in such proportion may we judge him to have been opposed
to the courtier's view of politics.

These observations tend to show how universally the drama in
Shakspere's time was used for political purposes ; how mystical and
hidden its political allusions are, and must be whenever the dramatist
does not intend to sing placebo to the Court ; but how certainly we
may solve its enigmas, if we once apply ourselves to unriddle them.
The process will be of some use in settling the chronology of Shak
spere's plays ; it will be of far greater use in unfolding his ideas, in
showing where his sympathies lay, and what opinions he advocated
in those dangerous days, when words and even thoughts might
make a man a traitor.

396

X. THE POLITICS OF SHAKSPERE'S HISTORICAL PLAYS.

BY RICHARD SIMPSON, ESQ., B.A.
(Read at the Ninth Meeting of the Society, October 9, 1874.)

PAGE

INTRODUCTION . . . .396

I. KIN a JOHN 397

II. RICHARD H. 406

III. HENRY IV, 411

IV. HENRY V. 416

V. HENRY VI 419

VI. RICHARD III. .... 423
VII. HENRY VIII. 425

VIII. DEC A Y OF THE NOBLES .
IX. GROWTH OF THE CROWN.
X. GROWTH OF THE PEOPLE.
XI. SHAKSPERE'S VIEW OF THE

CHURCH . ...

XII. SHAKSPERE'S POLITICS .
CONCLUSION .

PAOB

426
432
433

438
440
441

POLITICAL discussion is the fleeting accompaniment of the birth
and growth of political change ; history is the record of its solid
result. History marks the height the flood reached, but not the flow
of hopes and ebb of fears which varied its progress. Political dis
cussion deals with doctrines and principles rather than facts. History
rather with facts than the course of thought. Historians do not give
us lists of the reigning ideas of the day, such as Charles Buxton has
left us, in a book which will show future critics how far our poets
have meddled with our politics. We have had no Buxton to trace
for us the development of political thought in Shakspere's day, and
to show us at a glance whether Shakspere took part in it or not.

Whatever Shakspere did for the history of his own country
and of Rome, it is clear that he rarely refers to the facts of his own
day. He tells us nothing about Spain under Philip II. nor the
Armada, nor France under Henri IV., nor the United Provinces, nor
Mary Stuart, nor Essex, nor Raleigh. But he may still take part in
political discussion ; he may make old historical examples the
symbols of his present principles, and teach indirectly what he could
not or would not directly pronounce. Other dramatists did so. Did
he? In part answer to this question, I will examine rapidly his
English Chronicle Histories, and try to make out whether any
political purpose appears in them or not.

X. 1. MB R. SIMPSON. ALTERATIONS OF HISTORY IN KING JOHN. 397

The first point for examination must be, whether he followed the
Chronicles, or altered them. And if he altered them, whether the
alterations were mere compressions or juxtapositions necessary for the
very structure of the drama, or whether their sole purpose appeared
to be dramatic or poetic effect, or whether they were adopted from
some older playwright. Now Shakspere had little need to alter the
plots he found made to his hand ; he could put all he wished into
any given mould. And this shows the significance which should be
imputed to any alterations which he did make, whenever they seem
calculated to exhibit any political leaning specially applicable to the
questions of his day. And though every alteration by itself may be
explicable on artistic principles, yet if we find that all of them have
one political tendency, especially if that tendency is opposed to the
current principles of the government, which could only be opposed
at the peril of the theatre, and therefore in a manner which might bo
explained away or even forsworn, we should in this case have to
make full allowance for the cumulative evidence.

I. KING JOHN.

THE alterations from the Chronicles in King John are many and
considerable, and almost all taken from the old play ( The Trouble
some Raigne. 1591). But though the plot is borrowed, the political
tendency of the old play is entirely suppressed. The clearly expressed
design of the old play is to show the precursorship of John to the
reforming Messiahship of Henry VIII. John was like David,
unworthy to build the temple because his "hands with murder
were attaint." But a Solomon should succeed who should put down
monks and their cells.

I am not he shall build the Lord a house

Or root these locusts from the face of earth ;

But if my dying heart deceive me not,

From out these loins shall spring a kingly branch

Whose arms shall reach unto the gates of Rome,

And with his feet tread down the strumpet's pride

That sits upon the chair of Babylon.

398 X. 1. MR R. SIMPSON. ALTERATIONS OF HISTORY IN KING JOHN.

This leading idea of the old play is utterly excluded from the
new, where the points brought out are those connected with the
tenure of the crown ; whether it is held by hereditary right of the
eldest branch, or the eldest male of the family, or by the accident of
possession, fortified by the utility of the state ; whether it is forfeited
by crimes civil and ecclesiastical, whether such forfeiture is to be
adjudged and executed by neighbouring sovereigns, or by the State
itself, its peers or its people, or by the Pope. For Shakspere's
play is practically a discussion whether John shall remain King.
The grounds of the doubt are not, as in the Chronicles, the
general villany of the King, his cruelty, debauchery, effeminacy,
falsehood, extravagance, exactions, and general insufficiency, but two
points which do not seem to have weighed a scruple in the minds of
John's barons — the defect of his title as against the sontof his elder
brother, and his supposed murder of that son. The historical quarrel
against John as a tyrant is changed into a mythical one against him
as a usurper, aggravated by his murder of the right heir.

I will select eight points where Shakspere deserts the Chronicles,
without precisely following the old play, which in some particulars
he corrects by the Chronicles; showing that his departures from
history were retained with full knowledge and intention.

1 . In Shakspere, John is told by his own mother that he must
rely on his ' strong possession ' not on his right, and the suggestion
of the old play that Arthur, being " but young and yet unmeet to
reign," was therefore to be passed over, is thrown out.

2. Elinor tells Constance that she can " produce a will that bars
the title" of Arthur.

3. History is altered to heighten and refine the characters of
Arthur and Constance.

4. John's loss of his French possessions is accentuated by the
exaggeration of the dowry given to Blanche.

5. The scenes where John first persuades Hubert to murder
Arthur, and then reproaches him for it, are inventions of Shakspere.

6. The compression of John's four wars into two, though abso
lutely necessary for dramatic arrangement, is so managed as to have
an Elizabethan bearing. Of these two wars the poet makes the first to

X. 1. MR R. SIMPSON. JOHN'S TROUBLES LIKENED TO ELIZABETH'S. 399

concern Arthur's title, without any religious or ecclesiastical motive.
The second he makes to be in revenge for Arthur's death, with an
ecclesiastical motive added in John's excommunication. This is
wholly unhistorical. ]STo English lord interfered in behalf of Arthur,
whose death raised no commotion in England, and was long passed
and forgotten before the controversy with the Pope about Langton
began. The confederacy between the barons and Lewis was ten years
after Arthur's death, with which it had nothing to do. The Shak-
sperian representation of the troubles of John is that he had first to
defend the legitimacy of his title ; then that he had to fight his own
barons, who revolted from him because he had murdered the heir
they acknowledged, and allied themselves with Lewis the Dauphin,
who, now Arthur was dead, could claim, in right of his wife, the
.Spanish Blanche, the throne which John had forfeited by excom
munication. The facts of this excommunication are misrepresented in
the play. Really, John's kingdom was first put under interdict ; a
year afterwards he was excommunicated ; but he prevented the docu
ment entering the realm, and his theologians maintained that it
was void. After four years, Innocent absolved John's vassals from
their oath of fealt}^, and exhorted all Christian knights to assist in
dethroning him, and substituting a more worthy successor. John was
not proclaimed a heretic, neither was secret assassination of him
publicly recommended.

7. Pandulph insinuates to Lewis that it is his interest to abstain
from interference till John's murder of his nephew should make
interference profitable to himself.

8. Melun's confession of Lewis's intended treachery to the barons
is the occasion of their return to allegiance.

Every one of these points, in which the poet deviates from the
Chronicles, is so turned as to contain indirect references and allusions
to contemporary politics, or to events which had a decisive influence
on them.

Thus, 1. It was not the legitimacy of John's title that was the
real object of interest to Shakspere or his audience. Hecuba was
nought to them. Elizabeth's title, and the succession to her crown,
were the great questions of the day. Her father and brother were

TRANSACTIONS. 26

400 X. 1. MR R. SIMPSON. JOHN'S TROUBLES LIKENED TO ELIZABETH'S.

the only sovereigns since Richard II., whose titles had been
undisputed.

2. The title of Mary of Scotland had been barred by the will of
Henry VIII.

3. The helplessness and wrongs of Constance and Arthur are so
managed as to suggest parallels with Mary of Scotland, Catharine
Grey, or Arabella Stuart.

4. John Lacklajid's easy renunciation of all his .French posses
sions (exaggerated by Shakspere) must have suggested a reference to
the widely-blamed proceedings by which Calais was lost by Elizabeth's
advisers. Leicester is accused of having sold it to the French in
1559 (Leicester's Commonwealth, p. 62). "We may read George
Sanders' ironical description of the French treatment of the Commis
sioners who went to demand either the money or the town in 1567 :
"our gentlemen were but easily entreated there and are returned
without either money or possession " (Historical MSS. Commission).
Verstegan, in his tract against the Cecilian commonwealth in
1592, returns to this matter three several times, and Bacon in his
reply touches it as lightly as possible.

5. The scenes between John and Hubert are considered by War-
burton and Malone [Boswell, 327] to be a covert attempt to flatter
Elizabeth by throwing on Secretary Davison the blame of the Queen
of Scots' death. They did not notice that if Hubert is Davison, John
is Elizabeth. She cannot be flattered in the second of these scenes
unless she is touched by the murderous suggestions of the first.
In truth, both fit her completely, [Act III. Sc. iii. 1. 19 to the end;
Act IV. Sc. ii. 1. 208 to the end] and it is only wonderful that allu
sions so plain should have been tolerated.

6. It was no doubt dramatically necessary to abridge and sum
marize John's wars. But it was not necessary so to abridge them as
to make them typify the troubles of Elizabeth. The Shaksperian
John has to maintain two quarrels. One for his title, the second for
his crown against the agents of the Pope.. So it was with Elizabeth.
At Gateau Cambresis in 1559 the French said to Elizabeth's envoys,
" put the case that Calais were to be re-delivered to the crown of
England .... to whom shall we re-deliver Calais ? .... Is not the

X. 1. MB R. SIMPSON. ELIZABETH'S TITLE QUESTIONED. 401

Queen of Scots true Queen of England ? " The French papers in the
Record Office for the year 1559 are full of this controversy, and Sir
Nicholas Throgmorton, the ambassador at Paris, was directed cau
tiously to object against the Dauphin and Queen of Scots quartering
the arms of England on their shield. Sarpi's story of Paul IV.
denouncing Elizabeth to Game as illegitimate is discredited. But by
these papers we see that the Bishop of Arras was aware of the
intrigues of the French to procure his doing so,

Up to the year 1569 the doubts of Elizabeth's title were all con
nected with the validity of her mother's marriage, and the force of
her father's testament. In that year Dr Morton was sent over from
Rome to denounce to the northern Earls the impending sentence of
excommunication, which was actually published against her in 1570.
From this time she was declared to have forfeited the crown as a
heretic. Dr Allen in publishing the Pope's plenary indulgence to
all Englishmen who should favour the Spanish invasion of 1588
exhorted "any person public or private... to arrest, put in hold, and
deliver up unto the catholic part the said usurper, or any of her com
plices." From a princess's prison to her grave is no long journey ; and
with the proofs of Ridoln's commission, and such evidence as the above
document, and the notorious teaching of the schools of divinity on
tyrannicide, and the examples of the Netherlands and France, it was
not wonderful that all the proved or suspected plots to assassinate
the Queen, were held to enjoy the connivance, if not the authority,
of Rome : and Shakspere altered the facts of John's interdict, to
make them fit the contemporary history of Elizabeth's excommunica
tion. After the execution of the Queen of Scots, Elizabeth's situa
tion was exactly parallel to that of John after the death of Arthur,
as (unhistorically) represented by Shakspere.

7. The politic advice of Pandulph to Lewis to delay interfering
till the murder of Arthur should leave Blanche the next claimant,
was acted on by Philip II., who prudently delayed his promised
intervention in favour of the Queen of Scots, till her death had
opened a prospect for the claims of his daughter, the Infanta.
Whether Father Parsons was his Pandulph in this counsel, is not
clear ; but it is certain that Parsons was bitterly hostile to the school

402 x. i. IMPORT OF SHAKSPERE'S ALTERATIONS IN KING JOHN.

of Catholic politicians who would have come into power with the
accession of Mary.

8. The intended treachery of Lewis to his English allies is pre
cisely parallel to that intended by Medina Sidonia to the English
who might favour his landing. He declared a that if he might once
land in England, both Catholics and heretics that came in his way
should be all one to him : his sword could not discern them : so he
might make way for his master, all was one to him." [Wm Watson,
Important Considerations, p. 73.] This declaration was naturally
made into a great motive against " Spaniolation ", as Shakspere unhis-
torically makes Lewis's intended treachery the motive for the return
of the rebel peers to their allegiance.

One of these points involves a reconstruction of the facts, another
a reconstruction of the motives of history. To what end were these
liberties taken with the Chronicles 1 All the changes seem made
with a view to the controversy on the title to the crown. This was
the standing trouble of Elizabeth's reign. Her own title was con
troverted, first because she was illegitimate, next because she was
excommunicate. The choice of her successor was equally a difficulty.
And all the parties, those who opposed her, whether as illegitimate,
or as excommunicate and tainted with the murder of the right heir, — •
those who maintained her, those who advocated the succession of the
Scottish King, or Arabella, or the Infanta, or Derby, or Huntingdon,
or Essex, all appealed to foreign arbitration. The Queen of Scots
relied first upon France, then upon Spain. Her agents abroad per
petually intrigued on her behalf with foreign powers. Those who
defied Elizabeth as a heretic beseiged the Pope, or Philip, or the
Emperor, or the Italian Princes, with their supplications and their
plots. After Mary Stuart's death, her agents at Paris became agents
for her son. Eather Parsons tells us how " Charles Paget and Morgan
plotted for James, being the heads of that faction on that side the
sea, unto whom all agents for the King of Scots, sent secretly to foreign
princes, first repaired to receive instructions and assistance." They
persuaded James to make friends of such princes as could help him
in his pretence to England. Erom Elizabeth he could hope nothing.
He should put himself into the hands of the Pope and King of

X. 1. FOREIGN ARBITRATION UNIVERSALLY CONTEMPLATED. 403

Spain, and that rather in the Queen's lifetime than to wait for her
death. [Record Off. Dom. Eliz. Vol. 271, No. 74, July -^ 1599.]
James followed the advice. He appealed to the Pope and Philip,
was prodigal of vows, was ready to become Catholic if they would
warrant his succession, and made friends with Essex and Robert
Cecil. The partisans of the Infanta were equally active. Parsons's
book on the succession, printed in 1594, was circulated in MS. in
1592, which year he received 300 letters about it out of England.
His arguments had made a profound impression on all kinds of
people, from the Chief Justice downwards, and he sketched out a
sequel to show " that Philip noways meant to annex England to the
Spanish crown, but to leave the election to a free Parliament, in the
full persuasion that it would choose the Infanta" [see Brydges's
Restituta, 1, 469]. This " confusion of so many competitors to the
crown both within and without the realm " was said by Verstegan in
1592 to " prognosticate such slaughters " as never were, even in the
wars of the Roses. In the Infanta's interest, Philip maintained in
Flanders the English regiment of Sir Wm Stanley, to be a nucleus for
rallying the Catholic recruits when by an invasion before or after
Elizabeth's death he should take part in the scramble for the crown.
Hence the laments of the chaplain of the regiment, when it was
gradually becoming Irish instead of English. (H. Walpole's Letters,
ed. Jessopp, pp. 11 and 16.) At the same time the loyalty of all
the great English families was tempted. Lists of nobles and gentry
who might be counted on, were from time to time sent to Rome or
Madrid, and pensions and rewards were disbursed to them. They
were carefully distinguished as Catholic, Indifferent, or Protestant — •
not so much for their religious opinions, as for the side they took in
politics. Among the Catholics we find the Earls of Northumberland,
Shrewsbury, Derby (with his son Lord Strange), Arundel (with his
brothers Audley and Lord Wm Howard), and Westmoreland. The
Lords Vaux, Mount] oy, Paget, Windsor, Mordant, Henry Howard,
Dacres of the North, Stourton, Lumley, Wharton, Berkeley, Sheffield,
Morley, Kildare with his son Garrett, and Compton. With the
Knights Bapthorpe, Malory, Stapleton, Gerard, Catesby, Tresham,
Fitzherbert, Peckham, Godwin, Herbert, Bretherton, Hastings

404 X. 1. FOREIGN ARBITRATION UNIVERSALLY CONTEMPLATED.

Browne, Poyiitz, Bottley, Arundel, Conway, Petoe, Baker, Ingle-
tield, and Winter.

The List of ' IndifFerents ' comprises Lords Rutland, Oxford,
Bath, Lincoln, Cumberland, Cobham, Chandos, Delaware, Charles
Howard, Cheny, Dacres of the South, Northampton, and Bromley
the Chancellor.

That of ' Protestants ' contains only the names of Leicester, Hun
tingdon, Warwick, Bedford, Kent, Hunsdon, Burghley, Buckhurst-
Grey of Wilton, and Russell, with Sir Francis Walsingham, and Sir
Francis Knowles.

This list belongs to some year between 1580 and 1588. In 1602
Watson (Quodlibets, p. 211) adds up the list of English houses which
had suffered by listening to Jesuit intrigues. It includes those ot
Winchester, Oxford, Arundel, Westmoreland, Northumberland, Lin
coln, Cumberland, Shrewsbury, Pembroke, Derby, Hertford, Hunt
ingdon, Leicester, Worcester, Bath, Kent, Sussex, Nottingham, and
Montague. With all of whom Watson insinuates that the Jesuits had
intrigued in behalf of the Infanta or of Arabella, and who had all more
or less acceded to the settlement of the succession by foreign arbitra
tion.

Foreign arbitration was no strange idea in Elizabethan politics.
The English Queen helped the French rebels after the death of
Henri II. She assisted the Netherlander against Philip ; she inter
fered in Scotland from the very beginning of her reign, imprisoned
the Queen and finally beheaded her ; she set up James VI. against
his mother, Francis of Yalois in Brabant against Philip, Antonio in
Portugal also against Philip, and from the first recognized and sup
ported Henry of Navarre as heir and king of France (Philopater, p.
141-143). The example of the government taught English factions to
intrigue with foreign princes. And the policy of Spain in the last
decade of the 16th century was to constitute itself the patron of each
English pretender, so as at last to be the umpire for all, and then by
appealing to terror and superstition, and by spreading prophecies of
the feted possession of England by the Spaniard, to secure the prepon
derance of the Infanta's pretences, and to make all parties acquiesce
in the fated result. [Watson, Quodlilets, 209, 210.]

X. 1. MR R. SIMPSON. THE MORAL OF KING JOHN. 405

Amidst these seething anxieties, and before the youthful heirs of
the very families on whom the foreigner counted, Shakspere pro
duced his King John — a king to whom, with Edward II. and
Richard II., Philopater and the malcontents were wont to liken the
Queen. And he made the example more apposite, and the allusions
more telling, by altering history. He showed the faction of Philip,
men who thought he had commission

From that supernal judge that stirs good thoughts

In any breast of strong authority

To look into the blots and stains of right,

that the motive of his interference was not love of right, but ' com
modity,' which would make the prince traitor to the cause he pre
tended to protect, and lightly sacrifice the claimant he backed, on the
first scent of gain. Then he showed the Papal faction, the men who
invoked the Pope's arbitration as a divine intervention of indifferent
justice, that the Pope is and must be indifferent to every cause but
his own. He cares not for the legitimacy of the pretender, nor in
terferes with the usurper who leaves the Church at liberty. John
may imprison and murder Arthur, and the Pope is quiescent. But
when John refuses to institute Stephen Langton, the Pope comes
on the scene with a rival claimant, not more legitimate than
John, but likely to be more obedient, a more faithful vassal of the
Church. Arthur is too weak for the purpose, so his legitimate claims
are disregarded ; Lewis seems a fit instrument, and he is selected, and
the English barons are commanded to support him. But Lewis thus
acquires no title to the Pope's continued support. He may be faith
ful as Pylades, and valiant as Hercules, John can at any moment cut
away the ground from under him by doing penance. An act of
politic hypocrisy restores John, make Lewis an unjust aggressor, and
changes the barons from Crusaders and Paladins into insurgents and
traitors, handed over to the tender mercies of a false and vindictive
tyrant. Such, the poet seems to say, being the result of foreign in
tervention, civil or ecclesiastical, it follows that home quarrels are to
be settled at home, and British wrongs righted by British hands.

This England never did and never shall
Lie at the proud feet of a conqueror

405 X. 2. MR B. SIMPSON ON SHAKSPERE's TREATMENT OF RICHARD II.

But when it first did help to wound itself,

Nought shall make us rue

If England to herself do rest but true.

The moral of the dramatist amounts to this. He seems to say to the
malcontents of his day — " Whatever you think about the justice of
your cause or the crimes of your opponents, whatever outrages you
have to endure, whatever the merits of the losers or the demerits of
the winners — settle your quarrels amongst yourselves, and above all
things beware of inviting foreign intervention ! " If this was Shak-
spere's meaning, it was certainly a lesson eminently needed by, and
exactly fitted for, his contemporaries.

II. RICHARD //.

Richard IL, an earlier play than King Jolin^ follows the chronicles
more closely, perhaps because there was no earlier drama to mislead
the poet. Perhaps he canvassed only the title of John, without refer
ring to his misgovernment, bscause he had already shown the conse
quences of misgovernment in RicJiard II. Here Shakspere describes
to us, as Mr Courtenay says, " the state of England and the
misgovernment of Richard, in language quite consistent with the
chronicles, but such as, in the case of King John, Shakspere seems
studiously to avoid. In both cases he freely charges the kings with
murder or intended murder • but in the former he cautiously abstains
from characterizing those offences against the nobles and people which
led to the combination against him. He now freely puts into the
mouths of the malcontent peers and even of the gardeners charges
of insufficiency and tyranny which he did not bring against John."

To ascertain whether any political allusion may lurk under this
treatment, we should consult the ' opposition ' literature of Elizabeth's
reign. In that literature we shall find her usually represented as a
weak but well-meaning woman, led away by unworthy favourites,
such as Leicester and Cecil. And she is warned to beware of the
fate of John, Edward II., Richard II., and Henry VI. " Whereas,"

X. 2. MB R. SIMPSON. THE SITUATION IN 1593. 407

says Morgan [Leicester's Common wealth, p. 169,] " since the Conquest
\ve number principally three just and lawful kings to have come to
confusion by alienation of their subjects ; that is, Edward II.,
Kichard II., and Henry VI. ; this only point of too much favour
towards wicked persons was the chief est cause of destruction in all
three." And then he shows how Leicester is Gaveston, the Marquis
of Dublin, and the Duke of Suffolk, in one. So Verstegan in 1592
tells how the Queen, gifted as she was by nature and education, lost
all credit by Cecil. " Having once reposed trust in this suggestor,
she shadoweth his sinister practices under her authority, and left the
obloquy of his unjust actions to redound to her and her state."
Philopater in the same year begins his book against the edicts with
philippics against her chief counsellors, to whom he attributes the
faults of her reign.

The question is, not whether all these charges were true or
probable, but whether they were widely circulated and believed. The
years 1592 and 1593 were a time of discontent and fear. Philip
had seized a port in Britany, and his fleet was no longer of the
cumbrous build of the Armada, but "according to the provident
order of our English and most ready shipping." * Tender practices '
with the malcontents in Scotland had opened a passage to England
by the North. Elizabeth's exchequer was empty. The Lord
Treasurer said he had spent all in paying the English troops in the
Netherlands, and subsidizing Henri IV. and James VI. The budget
asked of the Commons was looked on with dismay. But they were
hounded on by a specious permission to impose new penalties on
recusants, and " in this forwardness," writes a member, " we are to
grant a treble subsidy and six fifteenths to be paid in four years."
[Hist. MSS. Commiss. IV. 335.] The temper in which Shakspere
would regard all this may be imagined when we remember that it
was in 1592 that his father was for the second or third time returned
as a recusant, who however, like the recusants across the Avon,
excused himself on the ground that he dared not venture to church
for fear of process for debt. [Cheney's Certificate, Oct. 24, 1577,
Record Off., Domestic Papers.] The Bishop of Gloucester divides
recusants into Puritans who object to the surplice, and Papists who

408 X. 2. " BENEVOLENCES " MEANT FOR ELIZABETH'S TIME.

plead fear of process for debt. Thus the eldest son of John and
Mary Shakspere saw the poor remains of his inheritance on the way
to be chewed by the ponderous jaws of the new penal laws, while
his own gains were wrung by the unwonted impost.

At a time when the country was full of secret and open murmurs
against a fiscal oppression and mismanagement which specially
pressed upon the poet himself, he produced Richard II, , and put into
it passages like these : —

The king is not himself, but basely led

By flatterers ; and what they will inform

Merely in hate 'gainst any of us all

That will the king severely prosecute

'Gainst us, our lives, our children and our heirs.

The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes
And lost their hearts : the nobles hath he fin'd
For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.
And daily new exactions are devised
As blanks, benevolences, and I know not what ;
But what, o' God's name, doth become of this ]

Benevolences were never heard of in Ei chard's day, and Shakspere
would not have used the word unless he meant to refer to times for
which he and his audience cared more. His words almost echo
Yerstegan's — " It is a wonder to consider what great and grievous
exactions have from time to time been generally imposed upon the
people, as all the loans, the lotteries, gathering for the steeple of
Pauls, new imposts and customs of wines, cloths and other mer
chandise, forfeitures and confiscations of goods of Catholics, forced
benevolences for the succouring of the rebellious brethren, huge masses
of money raised by privy seals, and last of all, the great number of
subsidies, which have been more in the time of the Queen than those
which have been levied with divers of her predecessors, and amount
to many millions of pounds. And if that do not lie hoarded up in
the Queen's coffers, the Lord Treasurer (I trust) can give her Majesty
and the realm a good account in books and papers. But in the
meanwhile the commons are brought into common beggary, and by
the continued and intended exactions they are likely daily to be more
oppressed than other." Here we have * the daily new exactions ' the

X. 2. MR R. SIMPSON. MISGOVERNMENT IN ELIZABETH'S DATS. 409

' benevolences/ and the suspicion implied in the line " What, o' God's
name, doth become of this ? " Shakspere seems to make Burghley
speak by the mouth of Bushy when he says that the love of the waver
ing commons

Lies in their purses, and whoso empties them,
By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.

"Plebis Anglicanse ingenium," said Burghley, "ad seditiones
praeceps, si pensitationibus extra ordinem opprimantur." The Do
mestic Papers of this time in the Record Office tell us of the poverty
of city and country through the continual war, with its imposts, sub
sidies, and loans, and the bankruptcy of merchants through stay of
traffick (1591. Dom. Eliz., Vol. 240, jSTo. 143); of the hatred and
contempt for the Council, the weakness and disunion of the nobles,
the weariness of the people, and their readiness for any change. The
Spaniards were said to be threatening without with a mighty force,
and trusting to treason within. (Unton's speech in H. of C.,
Domestic Papers, March 24, 1593.) No, it was replied — " the pre
parations of Spain were but a rumour given to draw out the subsidy."
The license given to the Commons to harry the recusants was & con
trivance of the same kind, and their extreme measures were much
mitigated in the House of Lords. The Puritans were furious, both at
the intolerance to themselves and the mitigation of severity to the
Catholics. " The Queen will not move a finger to help the gospel,"
wrote Penry ; " her gospel stoops to her ; the Council, Magistrates,
Ministers and people are rebels and conspirators against God. The
service of God is forbidden. The Queen would not have embraced
the gospel, if she could have had the crown without it. It would
have flourished more, if Queen Mary had reigned to this day."
(Record Office, May 31, 1593.)

It has been noticed that Richard II. differs from the other plays,
in that the depreciation of the people and the exaggeration of royal
prerogative are put into the mouths of the favourites and evil coun
sellors. This is quite in the spirit of the opposition literature of the
day, which affirmed that the Queen by their means had lost the
hearts of nobles and commons, and had allowed her treasures to dis-

410 X. 2. MR R. SIMPSON. ELIZABETH IS RICHARD II.

appear through corrupt channels, and not through the legitimate
waste of war. For it was notorious that the conquerors of the
Armada had died like flies for want of fresh beer and provisions, and
had been checked in their victorious career because the Council would
not supply gunpowder. Cecil, it was said, " had consumed more in
piracy, and peddling aid to foreign rebels, than would have sufficed
for a substantial conquest." While on the other hand he had, ' on
base compromise, yielded Calais, the last vestige of the ground of
the fleurs de lys on the English shield, and spent more money in a
losing peace than the old governments had spent on gainful wars.'

Founded or unfounded, such were the charges then current ; and
the play, or parts of it, fits these charges exactly. Of course such
offensive allusions could not be much more than obiter dicta in a
drama. In the opposition dramas under the second French Empire
we have seen all the meaning concentrated in some line, some
epigram, which had escaped the censor, and which the applause of
the theatre turned into a political manifesto. By some means ' Rich
ard II. ' had early become a political nickname of Elizabeth. " I was
never one of Richard the Second's men," wrote Hunsdon before 1588 :
Essex, Robert Cecil, and Raleigh made merry over the ' consait of
Richard II.' in 1597 ; in 1601 Elizabeth said to Lambarde, "I am
Richard II. Know you not that 1 " and he said that he knew Essex
had so called her.

The historical play is the natural resource of the political dra
matist. The audience may understand his meaning, and he may
forswear it before the magistrate. The historian must be historical.
Richard's disposition is only made intelligible by showing the causes
which made rebellion successful. These were discontents caused by
misgovernment. To represent these, the play must introduce discon
tented persons talking of their grievances. How can such a repre
sentation prove any partisanship in the dramatist 1 One might as
well impute it to Holinshed as to Shakspere. And so it was imputed
to Holinshed. On the 3rd of November, 1590, Elizabeth ordered
Windebank, Burghley's Secretary, to command the Chronicle to be
called in. Windebank represented the difficulties of doing so ; but
the Queen still insisted, and vehemently inveighed against it as being

X. 2, 3. THE APPEAL TO HISTORY IS TKEASON. HENRY IV. 411

' fondly set out.' Her immediate objection was a comparative trifle ;
but she was evidently disgusted with the spirit of it. How could
she, who had so strongly resented John Knox, put up with Holin-
shed's reflections on Queen Elinor and Constance — " So hard it is to
bring women to agree in one mind, their natures being commonly so
contrary, their words so variable, and their deeds so indiscrete ; and
therefore it was well said of one, alluding to their disposition and
properties, nulla diu femina pondus habet." "What was said in
general terms about one Queen was very likely meant for another.
So if Shakspere wrote his Richard //., when in English Society,
especially among the young gentlemen and nobles who most fre
quented the theatre, there was a feeling that the Queen was in the
hands of a selfish favourite who depopulated England with impress
ments, ruined trade by monopolies, fleeced households by extraordin
ary taxation, while he himself was growing exorbitantly rich, and
strengthening a parvenu family by great alliances, even aiming by
such an alliance at the succession to the Crown through Arabella, it
can hardly be doubted that the poet had a political intention in it.
Such an intention was imputed to it when the partisans of Essex
used the play of Richard II. to further their political discontent in
1599, 1600.

III. HENRY IV.

IN both parts of Henry IV. the salient event is the Eebellion of
the North. It could not have been played on the stage without
reminding the audience of the rising of 1569, associated with Shak-
spere's earliest recollections : he was then between five and six
years old. To make the application more obvious, the earlier history
was manipulated, as I shall show

In Henry's day there were three risings in the North ; first under
Hotspur ; then under the Archbishop ; lastly, three years later, under
Northumberland and Bardolph. These three risings the poet reduces
to two, by making the third a mere episode of the second. And he
thoroughly misrepresents the second, with which in reality North-

412 X. 3. MR B. SIMPSON. THE RISING IN THE NORTH.

umberland had nothing to do, for he had been reconciled to the king
and restored to most of his dignities in 1404. It was not till long
after the Archbishop's death that he rebelled again and was slain.

By this unhistorical manipulation the two risings are made in one
respect very like the two wars in King John — the first secular in its
motives ; the second resting mainly for its support on ecclesiastical
influences. It was supposed all through Elizabeth's reign that a
double treasonable movement like this was going on. One of its
phases was political only, aiming at deposing Elizabeth as illegiti
mate, substituting the Queen of Scots, and restoring the old nobility
to their old privileges. When the English fugitives of 1569 repre
sented themselves as religious confessors and maintainers of the
Pope's authority, Burghley declared their assertion to be false, and
an after-thought. But it was different with the second phase of the
rebellion ; this indeed never came to a head, but it was ever living
in the imaginations of the counsellors, and terrified them to the
enactment of more and more grievous penal laws. This two-fold
view of the rebellion is described by Morton to Northumberland,
2 Hen. IV. i. 189 :

The gentle Archbishop of York is up,

Who with a double surety binds his followers.
Hotspur had

But shadows and the shows of men to fight,

for the word 'rebellion' divided their minds, so that he had only
their bodies —

but for their spirits and souls,
This word ' rebellion ' it had froze them up
As fish are in a pond. But now the Bishop
Turns insurrection to religion ;

He's followed both with body and with mind,

And doth enlarge his rising with the blood

Of fair King Richard scraped from Pomfret stones,

Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause,

Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land

Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke,

And more and less do flock to follow him.

X. 3. HENRY IV. INSURRECTION TURNED INTO RELIGION. 413

Tliis was the case in the 16th century. Before, and during 15C9, the
word ' rebellion ' froze up the souls of the malcontents, and isolated
the Northern Earls with their immediate following. Then came the
excommunication of Pius V. in 1570, and the sentence of Sextus in
1588, denouncing Elizabeth's extortions and wrongs against her
subjects, her aid to foreign rebels, and entertainment of fugitives, her
dealings with the Turk to invade Christendom, her persecution of
catholics, her slaughter of the Queen of Scots, her debasement of the
ancient nobility, and promotion of obscure persons. The Pope
turned insurrection to religion, and enlarged the rising with the blood
of fair Queen Mary, scraped from Fotheringay. Sanders excuses the
remissness of the catholics in joining the rising of 1569, by the fact
that they had not been authentically informed of the excommunica
tion of the Queen. The fact was whispered, agents came from Koine
to England to certify it, but the sentence was not officially pub
lished, and therefore the catholics treated it as a nullity. Sanders,
perhaps to magnify the Papal influence, treats the rebellion of 1569
as a consequence of the Bull of Feb. 1570, which Camden, perhaps
explaining Sanders, tells us was secretly communicated the year
before to a few, among whom Bishop Jewell by some means got pos
session of a copy. Sanders, however, says the rising failed, because the
Bull was not published. " By this denunciation many men of rank
were led to think of delivering their brethren, in firm hope of the
assistance of all catholics. The matter failed, because all catholics
knew not as yet that Elizabeth was declared a heretic. But the in
tention of these men was laudable." Burghley's comment on this is,
" the cause why the rebels prevailed not, was because all catholics
had not been duly informed that the Queen was a heretic. Which
want of information, to make the rebels mightier in number and
power, was diligently and cunningly supplied by the sending into
the realm of a great multitude of Seminaries and Jesuits, whose
special charge was to inform the people thereof." For years after,
Burghley treated one great English party as in a state of chronic
rebellion, always ready to break out, and always requiring the most
vigilant repression.

Shakspere fills up his vivid story of the rising with so many

4-14 X. 3. MR R. SIMPSON. HENRY IV. FALSE IN ONE, FALSE IN ALL.

life-like details of his own — such as the whole character of Hotspur,
the perfumed Lord with his pounce-box, the letter from the ' dish of
skimmed milk,' and the indecision and imbecility of the Earl, — that
we might suppose him to have worked up materials he had gathered
in London from some who had a part in the rebellion. One of the
Percies, Sir Charles, was settled at Dumbleton in Gloucestershire, in
the neighbourhood of Stratford, and in a letter of 1601 speaks
familiarly of himself as Justice Shallow. This man, who refers to
these very plays, may have furnished some of the matter of
Henry IV.

The story of Falstaff and his fellows is a creation of the poet,
admirably echoing the moral of the serious part of the drama, accord
ing to the poet's method of managing his double plots. A statist,
says Fitzherbert (Religion and Policy, I. c. 30, No. 29), must avoid
all unlawful employment in any wickedness for his prince's service.
For he will never be trusted after, however satisfactory his service is
in the present. And the example he gives is, " Henry V. presently
after his father's death banished from the court all such as had been
counsellors, instruments, or companions of his riots before." This
note is first struck in Richard II. in the king's prophecy to North
umberland :

Thou shalt think,

Though he divide the realm, and give thee half,

It is too little, helping him to all :

And he shall think that thou, which knew'st the way

To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again

To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.

The love of wicked men converts to fear,

That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both

To worthy danger and deserved death.

The two parts of Henry IV. are the fulfilment of this prophecy.
In the First Part Worcester says,

— Bear ourselves as even as we can,
The king will always think him in our debt,
And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,
Till he hath found a time to pay us home.

Again —

Look how we can, or sad or merrily,
Interpretation will misquote our looks.

X. 3. MR R. SIMPSON. HENRY IV. ENGLISH REFUGEES ABROAD. 415

In the Second Part Mowbray dissuades the Archbishop from
reconciliation by the argument,

Our valuation shall be such
That every slight and false-devised cause,
Tea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason,
Shall to the king taste of this action.

And the dying king to his son :

[The crown] seemed in me

But as an honour snatch'd with boisterous hand,

And I had many living to upbraid

My gain of it with their assistances

Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed.

If men love the treason they hate the traitor, and suspect that
he who has been false to one will be false to another. So Lewis
justifies his treachery to the English nobles in King John ; so Othello
begins to suspect Desdemona, because she had been false to her
father. Cleopatra tempts Anthony to be false to Fulvia, and mis
trusts him for ever. And Parolles shows that no man after being
false to his friends can serve any honest use.

This constant prominence of the law which fatally conducts
traitors to punishment, is in Shakspere's plays modified by a large-
hearted sympathy with their grievances and their temptations. It is
so in the Roman plays — Brutus, and Coriolanus are instances. In
Cymbeline, Belarius deserves ill by doing well, is driven to treason
by being beaten for loyalty, and learns how ' il perd souvent d'avoir
trpp bien servi.' In King John, Salisbury exhibits the struggle
between patriotism and rebellion

In a modern play all this would be without special political
meaning. At the time of the landing of William III., or during the
struggle for American independence, it would have been alive with
meaning. So it was in Shakspere's days. Then the English visitor
to Spanish Flanders might see troops of his unhappy countrymen,
gentlemen, many of them, of good houses, wandering in poor habits
and pallid faces, debarred from returning to their country, daily over
looked by the proud eyes of disdainful Spaniards, in whose comfort
less service they were perishing without relief or pity. A pamphlet

TRANSACTIONS. 27

416 X. 4. MR R. SIMPSON. HENRY V. AND THE CHRONICLES.

of 1593, attributed to Lewknor, tells of the atrocious cruelty used
towards them by their hard masters, who knew that there was no
return for them to the land they had left, often from the purest
motives of religion and right. To swell this wretched company,
young men were daily being seduced from England, some by the
Spaniolated English, who based their hopes on a Spanish succession
to the crown, some by their own restless desire of glory, and their
sentimental preference of the Hidalgo of Spain to the beer-brewing
and basket-making Dutchman. Some, again, because they could not
live at peace in England, but were continually troubled by informers
and pursuivants and meddling justices, about their attendance at
church. — The temptation was great, quite important enough to
deserve the poetical dissuasive which it obtained in King John and
the two parts of Henry I V.

IV. HENRY V.

Henry V. is in date the latest of all the historical plays, except
Henry VIII., which stands by itself. In the parts which pretend to
be historical, the variations of Henry V. from the Chronicles are but
slight. The camp and courtship scenes are of course creations of the
poet. The structure of the play seems to show that its composition
was interrupted, and its commencement and achievement separated
by some interval. First, it has not come to us as it was promised,
and perhaps designed. It was to contain Falstaff, and does not. Mr
Furnivall fancies that the Falstaffian matter intended for it was
supplanted by that in The Merry Wives. Next, the first two scenes
seem earlier than the after part. In those scenes Shakspere follows
the Chronicle with fidelity, but he exaggerates the reflections cast
upon the Scots. In Holinshed, Westmoreland, the warden of the
marches, moves the King to begin first with Scotland, and quotes
the old saw. Exeter replies, reversing the proverb, and advising to
begin with France, as the school of Scottish policy and skill. Shak
spere founds on this a long conversation (I. ii. 136 — 180) breathing

X. 4. MB R. SIMPSON. DATE OF HENRY F. 417

groat dislike to the Scottish race and policy, where, without warrant
of Chronicle, he makes the King rehearse the Scottish invasions of
England in the time of Edward III.

This anti-Scottish animus seems inconsistent with the fragment
ary scene (III. ii.) where the Welsh, English, Irish,, and Scottish
captains' friendly dispute is broken off by the Irishman's touchiness
about his nationality. A sequel to the scene is promised, but never
conies off. The Irishman and Scot appear in this one scene as if to
symbolize the union of the four nations under one crown, and their
co-operation in enterprises of honour, no longer hindered by the
touchiness of a separatist nationalism. This surely is a distinct idea,
quite inconsistent with the anti-Scottish feeling of Act I. ; it may
lead us to imagine that Henry V. was planned at a time, like 1598,
when there was ill-feeling towards both France and Scotland. To
wards France, because of the secret and separate treaty of Henri IV.
with Spain. Towards Scotland, because James was believed to have
commissioned Valentine Thomas to assassinate the Queen, and
because his brother-in-law of Denmark was openly quarrelling with
the English. For the later parts of the play the prologue to Act V.
fixes the date of 1599, and the Essexian spirit there manifested
quite explains the change which I have indicated in the poet's views.

The policy of Essex, sifted clear from his unhappy egotism, leaves
a very distinct residue, and is shown to consist in something moro
than a desire to enjoy an undisputed monopoly of the Queen's favour,
and to that end to cultivate the favour of the people, and especially
of the soldiers, and therefore to keep up a succession of military
enterprises by land or sea, under his own command in chief. If he
intrigued and strove for this, it was because this was the next means
for securing the political reforms to which his whole career was
directed. His acts uniformly point to a grand idea of a union of
all parties and all nationalities which were to be found in our group
of Islands. This involved equal justice to all, a general toleration in
religion, and an abolition of the privileges of one sect and of the
penalties attached to another. To secure this unity he was perfectly
ready to sacrifice the happiness of other nations, and to bind our
people together by the common dangers, sufferings, and triumphs of

418 X. 4. MR R. SIMPSON ON HENRY V. POLICY OF ESSEX.

an offensive war carried on systematically and scientifically against
the foreign enemies of England. For these ends he favoured the
succession of James of Scotland, and with him, the union of the
crowns and peoples. He demonstrated in a famous letter the hope
lessness of putting down rebellion in Ireland by the sword, recom
mended to the Queen the most gentle methods he dared, — corruption
of, and fomenting divisions among, the Irish chiefs, — while he him
self set the example of coming to terms with them by negotiation
and truce.. He had ever been so strongly the protector of oppressed
religions, that he was accused of being both Puritan and Papist, while
his tolerant conduct procured him the name of an enemy to the Church,
in spite of his close friendship with its most eminent ministers. He was
the advocate of the soldier's cause, whose calling he would consolidate
into a well-paid profession, not subject to compulsory impressment,
unpaid service, and then to dismissal to beggary and starvation,
the highway and the gallows. For he thought war to be the great
bond of union, as it had proved in 1588, when, ot the first summons
of danger, Puritan and Papist were

As forward in the quarrel as the foremost, arms to bear :
Recusants and suspects of note : of others was no care.

They flocked to the royal standard, — Englishmen first, Catholics
afterwards, — encouraged by Hatton and his party to hope for gaining
a toleration by this crucial proof of loyalty. And the bigots in the
government were obliged to quench the war after its first blaze, and
to starve the growing enthusiasm of victory, in order to carry on their
system of governing by division, and of satisfying the dominant
party by feeding it with the flesh of its enemies. The stay of the
war was the signal for a new civil war of bitter controversies and
persecution.

Such was the policy of the school of Essex, and such is the policy
of Henry V. It is a poem of victory, a glorification of war, not as
an agony of brutal passions, but as an agent of civilization — "when
lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the
soonest winner." At the end of Richard //., and of Henry IV., war
had been advised to heal the wounds of England. In Henry V. it

X. 4. MR R. SIMPSON. HENRY V. AND ESSEX. 419

is proposed by the clergy to heal the growing discontent of the laity.
In the camp the rival nationalities of the Islands are symbolically
brought together in friendly co-operation. In the King's conversation
with the English soldiers the scruples which Cardinal Allen had
striven to sow in their minds about fighting against Catholic enemies
in an unjust war [see his defence of Sir Win Stanley's yielding up of
De venter, Chetham Society reprint, pp. 18 — 22] are casuistically
refuted, and a distinction between political and religious obligation
firmly laid down in the most universally tolerant sense. " Every
subject's duty is the King's ; but every subject's soul is his own."
This tolerance did not belong to the historical Henry ; he conciliated
the prelates by the most unrelenting severity to the Lollards. But
it is an integral part of the ideal Harry, whose notion of union was
mutual helpfulness in peril —

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers —
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother (IV. iii. 60).

Peace in those days was thought to " make men hate one another,
because they then less need one another." It begot plenty, plenty
pride, pride disdain, and disdain strife, through which peace was at last
re-established by poverty and necessity. A national danger is the
time for oppressed parties to prove their desert by an opportune
patriotism. Quiet times give the reins to the strong oppressor, and
the intolerant bigot. War with its dangers is the school of tolerance.
The play ends with the union of the two belligerent countries, a
symbol of the coming union with Scotland, and with the prayer —
God combine your realms in one ! may it be a spousal of the king
doms, that no jealousy may thrust in between their paction.

V. HENRY VI,

FROM Henry V., the latest of the series (Henry VIII. is not all
Shakspere's), we come in due course to Henry VI. } the earliest.
The three parts of the Play of this reign I consider, as Shakspere

420 X. 5. MR R. SIMPSON. 1 HENRY VI. A LINK IN THE SERIES,

does, to be links in the series, though I do not pretend to decide
whether, or how far, these Parts are his. As the Epilogue of
2 Hen. IV. promises Hen. F., so the final chorus refers to the older
trilogy of Hen. VI., and states its purpose to be, to show that of his

state

— so many had the managing,

That they lost France, and made his England bleed.
Which oft our stage has shown.

"Without staying to enquire whether the work thus referred to by
Shakspere was his own or other men's, we must take these words as
absolute proof that it was the poet himself, not merely his posthumous
editors, Hemings and Condell, who decreed this trilogy to be an
integral portion of his historical series. The lines quoted refer to
all the plays of the trilogy. The first shows the mismanagement
which caused the loss of France ; the second and third the mis
management which made England bleed.

In the first part, the history is notably altered for the very pur
pose announced by Shakspere — to display the mismanagement which
lost France. This Part opens with a stiff eloge of Henry V., and the
first bickerings of Gloucester and Beaufort. Then comes a succession
of messengers bringing tidings of the loss of Guienne, Champagne,
Eheims, Orleans, Paris, Gisors, and Poictiers ; of the coronation of
Charles VII., the defeat and capture of Talbot, and the desperate
condition of Salisbury. One of these messengers says,

Among the soldiers this is muttered,

That here you maintain several factions,

And whilst a field should be dispatched and fought,

You are disputing of your generals.

One would have lingering wars with little cost ;

Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings •

A third thinks without expense at all,

By guileful fair words, peace may be maintained.

Most of these events took place long afterwards, after the war
had been successfully prosecuted for some years. Henry V. died in
1422, Talbot was taken prisoner in 1429. Holinshed records no
divisions in the Council at this time to affect the war, but represents
the Councillors acting together harmoniously, while Beaufort, instead

X. 5. MR R. SIMPSON ON HENRY VI. SUFFOLK IS LEICESTER. 421

of being ' out of office/ is co-guardian with Exeter of the young
king. Thus does the author of the play manipulate history to dis
play Shakspere's thesis,

"Whose state so many had the managing,
That they lost France.

Which is, in brief, the whole argument of 1 Hen. VI. > the only part
which has to do with an infant King under the control of guardians
and protectors. In the two latter parts he does for himself.

But all the parts equally exhibit a weak sovereign misled to his
ruin by evil counsellors. In this they resemble Richard II. The
special political allusion of Henry VI. seems to be to the time when
Leicester ruled the roast by playing on the weaknesses of the Queen.
Suffolk's lines at the end of 1 Hen. VI. are quite applicable to him,

Margaret shall now be Queen, and rule the king ;
But I will rule both her, the King, and realm.

This application would not necessarily require the date of the
play to be before 1588, when Leicester died, hash's apologue of
the Bear at the end of Pierce Penniless, 1592, similarly refers to the
dead statesman. The reign of Henry VI. is specially noted in
Leicester's Commonwealth as similar to that of Elizabeth, where
Suffolk is compared with the Earl. " In Henry VI., being a simple
and holy man, albeit no great exorbitant affection was seen towards
any, yet his wife Queen Margaret's too much favour and credit (by
him not controlled) towards the Marquess of Suffolk, that after was
made Duke, by whose instinct and wicked counsel she made away
first the noble Duke of Gloucester, and afterward committed other
things in great prejudice of the realm, and suffered the said most
impious and sinful Duke to range and make havock of all sort of
subjects at his pleasure (much after the fashion of the Earl of
Leicester now, though yet not in so high and extreme a degree), this
I say was the principal and original cause, both before God and man
(as Polidore well noteth), of all the calamity and extreme desolation
which after ensued both to the King, Queen, and their only child,
with the utter extirpation of their family." Leicester's Commonwealth

422 X. 5. THE PARALLEL OF SUFFOLK AND LEICESTER BROUGHT OUT.

is not merely a papist libel. Burgliley himself is said to have fur
nished Morgan with much of its material. The story of the Duke
of Suffolk seems to be misrepresented in the play, with the inten
tion of suggesting the parallel with Leicester. His undue familiarity
with the Queen must have recalled many a scandal. His enclosure
of the commons at Melford and treatment of the petitioners against
him (2 Hen. VL, I. 3) is parallel to the instances of Leicester taking
in " whole forests, woods, and pastures to himself," and then having
the petitioners against him hanged (Lei. Com. pp. 61, 72). Per
haps also the two matrimonial incidents of these plays, Henry VI.
jilting the Earl of Armagnac's daughter for Margaret, at the instiga
tion of Suffolk, and Edward IV. jilting the Lady Bona for Lady
Grey, may have been intended to recall Elizabeth's last courtship,
when she jilted Anjou chiefly through the influence of Leicester,
himself an old suitor of the Queen, and jealous of his rival. The
advantages of the French match are argued in a way which quite
falls in with this suggestion :

.... To have joined with France in such alliance
Would more have strengthen'd this our commonwealth
'Gainst foreign storms, than any homebred marriage.

The reply is that " of itself England is safe", if true within itself" ; —
" but safer back'd by France " says the first. " Better to use France
than trust her. Our safety lies in God and in the sea," — says the
second. And this patriotic belief we find in King John, in Henry
IV. and Henry V., and in Gaunt's speech in Richard II.

Sometimes the secondary intention of the play is so strong that it
betrays the poet into similes quite inappropriate to the plain mean
ing. Thus the comparison of the Duke of York to Phaethon, and of
Henry VI. to Phrebus, though it is twice used, is exceedingly forced.
Quite other is the case, if the real allusion is to the favourites of
the Queen, who by her permission bring disasters on the land.

0 Phoabus, hadst thou never given consent
That Phaethon should check thy fiery steeds
Thy burning car had never scorched the earth.

The same may be said of the following passage, which applies,

X. 5, 6. MR R. SIMPSON. TRAITS OF HENRY VI. RICHARD III. 423

not to York, who fought for and conquered his own position, but to
favourites who spring up in court sunshine :

For what doth cherish weeds, but gentle air,

And what make robbers bold, but too much lenity 1

This is little more than an echo of the burden of Leicester's Common
wealth, and it is emphasized in the play by being put into the mouth
of the dying Clifford ; when men's tongues

Enforce attention like deep harmony.

One characteristic of the three parts of Henry VI. is the political
disaster which invariably overtakes innocence in high places ; — the
king, his uncle Gloucester, the Lord Say, and Exeter. The final
success belongs to the family which sought its rightful ends, not by
righteous means, but by the policy of ' the murderous Machiavel '
(3 Henry VL, III. ii. 193), whom Shakspere makes Eichard propose
as his example, in place of the * aspiring Catiline ' of the older
play. The literature of Queen Elizabeth's days similarly mentions
the difficulty for the most innocent of keeping clear of the jaws of
the ' giant statutes ' which devoured men even for listening.

Another trait in Henry VI. is his abandonment of accused persons
of whose innocence he is persuaded ; he commits his uncle Glouces
ter to the custody of his worst enemy. The same weakness is shown
in his treatment of Suffolk at the instance of the men of Bury — the
king always lamenting his hard fate in being obliged to do these
things. Compare this with what Camden says of Elizabeth's execu
tions under the Penal laws. Regina " subinde querebatur se ad haec
necessario adactam fuisse .... Plerosque tarn en ex misellis his
sacerdotibus exitii in patriam conflandi conscios fuisse non credidit."
(ad an. 1581.)

VI. RICHARD III.

THE Drama of the fall of the house of Lancaster is completed by
the play of Richard III. The references in this play to the three

'424 X. 6. MR R. SIMPSON ON RICH. III. THE TYRANT AND PROVIDENCE.

parts of Henry VI., are so many as to make it impossible to deny
the serial character and unity of the whole tetralogy, whatever ques
tions may be raised as to the authorship of parts of it. The whole
exhibits the fate of virtuous weakness in the face of unscrupulous
strength, and concludes with the fate of this strength in the face of
providence. Henry VI. perishes by natural causes. The forces which
destroy Eichard III., are wholly supernatural. Three women are
introduced whose curses are inevitable, like those of the Eumenides.
Ghosts prophesy the event of a battle. Men's imprecations on them
selves are literally fulfilled. Their destiny is made more to depend on
their words than their actions ; it is removed out of their hands and
placed in those of some unearthly power which hears prayer and
judges the earth. As if the lesson of the poet was that there is
human remedy where there are ordinaiy human motives, but that
for power joined with Machiavellian policy the only remedy is
patience dependent on providence.

Richard III., like king John, commits his last and unpardonable
offence when he slays the right heir. But the poet treats the offences
differently; he calls the barons who opposed John, rebels; his moral
judgment seems to approve of those who placed the first Tudor on
the throne. The two cases were placed on equal footing by the oppo
sition writers. " What disgrace or shame was it," asks Cardinal Allen,
" for all the chief lords of our country to revolt from King John and
to deny him aid, until he returned to the See Apostolic 1 " .... "or
for the English nobility, and specially for the renowned Stanley,"
(he is defending Sir Win. Stanley), " to revolt from King Richard
the tyrant, and to yield himself and his charge to Henry VII. ? "
The difference seems to be, that John's barons would have sold
England to the French King. Stanley, in spite of the Breton
auxiliaries of the Tudor, preserved the crown to a native dynasty. It
is to be noted too, that as the poet places his loudest denunciations of
Papal usurpations in the mouth of John, who was just about to be
come the Pope's ' man,' so does he put his most solemn warning
against traitors in the mouth of the successful rebel. But treason in
his mind is not against the crowned head, it is against the country :

X. 6, 7. MR R. SIMPSON. THE NEW ROYALTY. HENRY VIII. 425

Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,

That would reduce these "bloody times again ....

That would with treason wound this fair land's peace.

In the composition of this play the dangers of a disputed succession
were before Shakspere's eyes. The third scene of the second act
exhibits the evils incident on the decease of a prince when the
succession is doubtful or belongs to a child.

In Richard III. also the poet gave what he long left as a final
picture of the absolutism of the crown, as it had been developed by
the civil wars. By the extinction of the old baronage it had lost the
counterpoise which balanced it. Edward IV. surrounded himself
with new peers, relations of his wife, through whom he governed.
Eichard III. cut all these off, destroyed what remained of the older
nobles, and declared his intention of doing everything for himself,
and using nothing but unrespective boys for his ministers. He issues
his commands without pretence of legality. His merits as a legis
lator are entirely put out of sight by the poet. He makes himself,
to use Raleigh's words, " not only an absolute monarch 7 ike unto the
sovereigns of England and France ; but a Turk to tread under his
feet all natural and fundamental laws." Absolutism was, to the eyes
of politicians of those days, a legal state of things. Tyranny was
only the vicious personal aberration of the rightful absolute prince.
Raleigh similarly lamented the cessation of Villenage — " Since slaves
were made free, which were of great use and service, there are grown
up a rabble of rogues, cutpurses, and other like trades, slaves in
nature though not in law.1'' (Plist. IV. c. 11.)

VII. HENRY VIII.

SHAKSPERE lived to see the extinction of the Tudor dynasty, and
then he felt free to exhibit its differences from that of the Yorkist
Plantagenets in his portions of the play of Henry VIII. This will
bo apparent in the following section, where I intend to trace the

426 X. 7, 8. HENRY VIII, UNITY OF THE SERIES OP HISTORICAL PLAYS.

status of the English nobility as successively developed through
these plays.

Here I will only say that there is no foundation for Bucking
ham's charge that Wolsey was bribed by the Emperor to break the
peace with France. The invention seems to regard some of James's
ministers who were in the pay of Spain. The picture of the Court
under Cranmer is taken from Fox. The account of the trial of
Catherine from Holinshed. Not so, however, the success of Anne
Boleyn in captivating the king previously to the first hint of his
intention to divorce his wife. Shakspere clearly wished to represent
the divorce as beginning with the King's conscience having " crept
too near another lady."

VIII. DECAY OF THE NOBLES.

NOTHING shows the unity of this series of chronicle plays better
than tracing through them one single thread of history, such as the
position of the nobles. We have chronicle plays by different authors ;
one (Edward III.) to which Shakspere himself probably contributed
an act. But neither this, nor Hey wood's Edward IV., or Elizabeth,
nor any other — except perhaps Marlowe's Edward II. , where we may
suspect the counsel and assistance of Shakspere, — could be inserted
in the Shaksperian series ; that series stands alone, not so much in
the merit of its individual pieces, as in absolute philosophical unity.
Other plays deal with other classes of facts, the love affairs and
victories of kings, and the failures of traitors. These all deal with
their various subject matter in such a way that we may extract out
of them a Shaksperian philosophy of history.

With regard to the position of the nobles. In King John they
rightly appear not as deriving their rights from the great Charter, Avhich
the poet ignores, but as possessing them by common law and immemo
rial custom. The barons are the king's peers, his judges when he breaks

X. 8. GRADUAL CHANGE OF THE POWER AND STATE OF THE NOBLES. 427

the laws of Church, and State, and the executors of their judgment, so
far as they have the power. They are united by corporate feelings,
arid resent the intrusion of new men, among whom the King finds
his Huberts and Falconbridges to be his partisans and ministers.
The chivalrous old families are on one side, the unscrupulous and
blustering upstarts on the other ; but politically the upstarts are in
the right, the old nobles in the wrong. In Richard II. the nobles
still have this corporate union, but the part they play is less sublime.
They revolt, not to preserve religion and justice, but partly to pre
serve their order and privileges, and partly to deliver their country
from misgovernment. In Henry IV. they no longer hold together
with the same unanimity. When they act against the king, their
motives become personal ; there is no question of better or worse
government ; their regret for dethroning Itichard, and new-found
zeal for Mortimer, his legitimate heir, arises from their finding that
dethroning one king and setting up another may be serviceable to
the state, but is dangerous to themselves as soon as the new king is
independent of them. Safety requires them to go on dethroning
kings. There is a halt in this movement in Henry V., for the South
ampton plot fails, and the nation is united in a foreign triumph.
But this accidental delay soon ceases, is even fertile of fresh evils,
for when it' is over, the next reign begins with the discord of clergy
and laity, which has been smothered for a time by the policy of the
Bishops who advised the French war. In Henry VI. this opiate has
lost its force. The bickerings of the Protector and the Bishop show
that the bad leaven has been working under the show of union.
The nobles are already combined in factions, churchman against
layman, house against house. The feud of York and Lancaster
begins, not on a question -of their titles, but on some purely legal
controversy in the Temple garden.

There is no question of patriotism, or right, or religion among
them. Any one of them will let his country perish for a mere per
sonal matter of punctilio or interest. Instead of honour or conscience,
they obey a blind impulse towards balance of power ; and he that
out-tops the rest, becomes the enemy of all. Meanwhile religion
decays under prelates like Beaufort, and is honeycombed with super-

428 X. 8. MR R. SIMPSON. FALL OF THE NOBLES UNDER RICHARD III.

stition that can swallow, or craft that can counterfeit, the miraculous
cure of Simcox at St Albans. And now the populace first enters as
a force on Shakspere's dramatic world. Cade's country-people are
falsely represented as having no determinate object but the disintegra
tion of society and the abolition of law, as being soon weary of any
course, strong only for destruction, and swayed by the influences of the
moment. The burghers of Bury, on the other hand, have a precise
idea of what they want, and formulate their demands against Suffolk
with equal reason and policy. And in Richard III. the citizens of
London discuss the death of Edward IV. like political philosophers.
A back-ground of popular force and good sense begins gradually to
appear, before which the nobles play out their losing game, swaying
backwards and forwards, one faction strengthening itself by devour
ing another, for " snake must eat snake if it would grow a dragon."
Throughout the struggle, one family gradually rises. York bases his
fortunes partly on "Warwick, partly on the mutinous people, and
gains fresh strength by every blow which weakens any one else. His
three sons grow up in this hazard of fortune, like gamblers with no
god but luck, or at the most a calculation of chances. Nature, how
ever, is too strong for two of them. Edward and George are not
sufficiently disengaged from passion and principles. Eichard schools
himself to stifle every feeling, and sneer down every principle, and
to guide himself by the interest, first of his house, then of himself.
He uses his innate knowledge of good and evil, not to sway his own
conscience, but to give insight and mastery over others. He is the
antipodes of Henry YI. Unscrupulous, firm, unhesitating, using his
great capacity, not to unravel the tangle of right and wrong, but to
find the next way to what he wants, he conies on the stage as the
ideal Machiavellian prince, and also as the natural and necessary
result of the gradual degradation of the nobles and the disintegration
of their order. One destroyer, however wicked, is better than a
nation of destroyers. Under him a change comes over the nobles.
They have ceased to be kingmakers, peers, and censors of their
sovereign, or petty princes Avarring for supremacy. They have found
a master, against whom policy or violence is alike useless. They
can only peep timidly through the chinks of their prison for a

X. 5. MR R.SIMPSON. POSITION OF THE NOBLES UNDER THE TUDORS. 429

deliverer. The king bases his power on the commons, and snaps
his fingers at his peers. His fall comes, not from his political po
sition, which is unassailable, and which his successor occupies and
strengthens, but from the crimes by which he has climbed into his
throne. He is the victim, of his victims, whose curses consume him.
He does not fall to pieces through his own imbecility, like Henry
VI., but he is struck down by external force, and the envy of heaven
against overpowerful wickedness.

After Richard III., Shakspere skips one reign, and exhibits
England under Henry VIII. in a picture which serves for the times
of all the Tudors. His portion of the play is in two parts, repre
senting the Court and Nobles, first under Wolsey, and then under
Cranmer. The picture suits the Court of Henry VII. under Morton
and Fox, or that of Mary with Cardinal Pole, and that of Elizabeth
under the very theological tuition of Eurghley. It exhibits a king,
succeeding to the autocratical position of the House of York, sur
rounded by nobles, not his peers but his servants, feeling in a blind
way his dependence on the Commons, and no longer fortifying him
self with the alliance of dukes and earls, as powerful in their
counties as he in his realm, but surrounding himself with able
ministers raised from the Sacristy, and enriched by him with the
benefices or the spoils of the Church, in disparagement of the old
nobility. The difference between his reign and that of Richard III.
is, that dark deeds are now done, not by a tyrant's bare order, but
through the subserviency of his judges, and by his superiority to the
law. Buckingham, whose father had made Richard king, is now
not much stronger than Will Summers. Henry amuses himself with
his talk ; but when he becomes a nuisance to Wolsey, he is delivered
over to the judge, in spite of the queen's intercession. Kingmakers
have dwindled to courtiers. Their lives hitherto were a prey to
violence and lawlessness ; now they are the game for the labyrinthine
subtlety of intriguing lawyers. The queen herself falls a victim to
this new tyranny, and Cranmer rises by devising a new legal method
of divorce, when the old method had proved too independent of the
royal will. The policy is that which Richelieu afterwards carried
out in France, to rear the absolutism of the crown on the annihilation

430 X. 8. MR R. SIMPSON. REGRETS FOR THE DECAY OF THE NOBLES.

of its peers. The great families are ruined by forced residence at
court, not to honour them, but to make them live beyond their
means. Their youth " break their backs with laying manors on 'em."
Wolsey, ' butcher's cur ' though he be, is a beggar whose ' book
outworths a noble's blood,' and who is omnipotent, while in the
king's favour, to make and mar, to unmake even a queen, though he
fails to make another. He has not, like one of the old nobles, any
power of his own ; he is a mere conduit of the king's power. When
he loses favour, he bursts like the bubble to which Fletcher compares
him, and leaves no root behind. After his fall, another Ecclesiastic
succeeds, equally raised from obscurity by the king, protected by
him against the nobles, and hoisted up simply to do the work of the
divorce.

This degradation of the nobles was felt to be one of the most
serious facts of the time. Under the Cecils the peers had come to be
mere parasites of the court, feeding upon the people by their mono
polies, helpless to protect the Commons against the Crown, and only
powerful as the instruments of its tyranny. Essex, involved in the
net, vainly struggled against the toils. He half drew his sword when
the queen boxed his ears, and wrote to Egerton, " I keep my heart
from baseness, though I cannot keep my fortunes from declining.
When this scandal was done unto me .... doth religion enforce me
to serve ? . . . . Cannot princes err1? Cannot subjects receive wrong]
Is an earthly power or authority infinite 1 .... I can never subscribe
to these principles." He lived a century too soon ; he would have
had a fairer field in 1688. In the 16th century, the evil was too
imperfectly criticised for a remedy to be devised. In the literature of
the time the blot is hit, but no plan for its relief discussed. Verstegan
laments " the overthrow of the nobility, and the great and general
oppression of the people. Touching the present state of the nobility,
wherewith the stately courts of former princes were adorned, their
armies in the field conducted, the commons of the country relieved,
look whether they are not brought into that servility, that, if they
apply not themselves to Cecil's humour, they must not live in the
country but be tied unto the court, or allotted their dwelling as if
they were his perpetual wards, yea rather, as pupils that are kept

X. 8. MR R.SIMPSON. THE RESTORATION OF THE NOBLES DEMANDED. 431

under with rods, not daring to speak what they think or know, but
are set to be aim-givers, while others are set to hit the marks. Some
of them he hath undeservedly brought into disfavour of the prince :
sundry he hath drawn upon feigned favours of the court to consume
themselves to beggary : others he hath sent forth to be pirates and
sea-rovers : and the lives of some of the principal by guileful
pretended crimes he hath taken away : and by one means or other he
hath brought such as be yet living unto those terms, as none may be
permitted to carry any credit in the Commonwealth, except it be
some very few whose wisdom he can easily overrule. By which
means there is no subject in England of such opulentness, none of
more authority, and none of more power than himself." t New lords
new laws,' was the devise of the day. The Northern lords in their
first proclamation declare that their rising was for the removal of
those who had " abused the queen, disordered the realm, and now
lastly seek to procure the destruction of the nobility." In the second
proclamation, the rising was " to make known to whom the true suc
cession of the crown appertaineth," hindered by common enemies
about the queen's person whose practices are " well known to us and
to the rest of the nobility." Pius V., in his bull of 1570, says,
" She [the queen] hath dismissed the royal council of English nobles,
and rilled their places with obscure men and heretics." " Cecil
and the Queen," says Philopater (1592), " made nothing of the
ancient nobility," who repented too late of their subserviency in 1558.
They rose and failed in 1569, and then " Cecil so oppressed them,
bred such quarrels amongst them, so impoverished them, and loaded
them with debt, that he was thenceforth free from all fear about
them." And Parsons, in his Memorial, promises the reformation of
the injury and dis-estimation laid upon the nobility and gentry
in these latter years by some base heretical persons in authority. It
is not for me to say how this reform could have been carried without
an unpatriotic appeal to the Pope or Philip. All I show is, that the
grievance was felt and discussed, and that Shakspere had laid it open
in the light of living history.

TRANSACTIONS. 28

432 X. 9. MR B. SIMPSON. THE TENURE OF THE CROWN.

IX. THE HISTORY OF THE CROWN.

AFTER the nobles, let us trace the history of the crown. King
John is owned, even by his mother, to have possession, but no
right. And Ealconbridge after Arthur's death, whose title he always
opposed, says,

The life, the right, the truth of all this realm,
Is fled to heaven ; and England now is left
To tug and scramble, and to part by the teeth
The unowed title.

The rebellion of the nobles, justified morally, is only condemned
politically as unpatriotic : a treason, not against the king, but
against the country ; which they not only ravaged by war, but
delivered over to the foreigner. Salisbury, in the exaggeration of his
new loyalty, indeed says,

[We will] like a bated and retired flood,

Leaving our rankness and irregular course,

Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlooked,

And calmly run on in obedience,

Even to our Ocean, to our great King John.

The expression is strong, but it is after all only the natural term of
the metaphor of the overflowing river. The position of the royal
power must be judged by the facts, not by a doubtful word. The
1 right ' of King John being expressly denied, we can hardly find a
' divine right,' in a poetical bye- word.

None of the kings shown by Shakspere makes any protestation
of independence comparable in vigour to John's. He rejects the
Pope's claim to interrogate him as " slight, unworthy and ridiculous."
Yet he immediately pleads before the Legate, resigns his crown, and
receives it again as the Pope's vassal.

And none of the kings insists so strongly as Richard II. on his
divine right, and on the prerogatives of the Crown. He trusts more
to the divinity that hedges a king, than to armies or policy, and pro
tests that no hand but God's can deprive him of his rights. His

X. 9. MR R. SIMPSON. THE CROWN AND THE LAW. 433

very friends mock his c senseless conjuration.' Yet lie is the only
king in these plays who makes a formal abdication, and unseats
himself from the throne, all the time protesting that the Pilates
which make him do so commit an unpardonable sin and prophesying
to Northumberland the penalty which must overtake him. But only
a few think with him. The Bishop of Carlisle declares that no sub
ject can give sentence on his sovereign ; and to satisfy these scruples,
the king is made to pronounce his own deposition.

In the eyes of the most reasonable personages of the play the
crown is as subject to the law as any other dignity. The hereditary
right of the king is only one of many such rights. York urges, that
if the king prevents Hereford's succession, he invalidates his own
(II. i. 191). And Bolingbroke (II. iii.),

If that my cousin King be King of England,
It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.

So York says in 2 Hen. VL, i. 78,

'Twas my inheritance, as the Earldom was — •

or, as it stood better in the true tragedy, "as the Kingdom is." And
the hereditary claim may be modified by testamentary appointment.
Elinor in King John can produce a will to bar Arthur's succession.
Henry VI. (3 Hen. VL, I. i. 135) asks, " May not a king adopt an
heir," when he disinherits his son, and entails the crown on York.
And Gaunt tells Eichard II. that if Edward III. had known his
grandson's insufficiency,

From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
Deposing thee before thou wert possessed —

The poet seems to regard the deposition of a bad king, not as a right
for courts to enforce, but as a fatal and natural consequence of his
follies. The process develops itself almost to completion in King
John, and to its final conclusion in Ricliard //., Henry VL, and
Richard III. The nobles and people are alienated by misgovern-
ment and by crime. And the crowning delinquency is often the
murder of the heir to the crown. Shakspere unhistorically represents
this to be the cause of John's unpopularity ; and rightly, that of

434 X. 9. MR R. SIMPSON. CAUSES OP DEPOSITION OF ENGLISH KINGS.

Richard III. He also makes Henry VI. 's disinheriting his own son
to be the central knot of his unhappy career. The murder of
Richard II. is shown as a stain on the conscience not of Henry IV.
only, but of Henry Y. also. It is a pity that we have not Shakspere's
own direct judgment upon the affair of Mary Queen of Scots.

After the murder or disinheriting of the right heir, the prince's
abuses of his" ordinary power are causes of his fall. If he tampers
with the tenure of land, (as I suppose is the meaning of ' farming
his realm/ and making himself 'landlord, not King of England,'
and ' binding the whole land with rotten parchment bonds ') ; if he is
unjust to the nobles, gives ear to flatterers, cherishes informers, pills
the commons with taxes, fines the nobles for old quarrels, devises new
exactions, such as blanks and benevolences, fails to account for the
money, but becomes bankrupt, unable to borrow and obliged to rob ;
suffers his garden to be overrun with caterpillars, permits great and
growing men to do wrong without correction, and wastes his idle
hours instead of attending to his work — then he must fall. The
nation commits all these works to his hands without constitutional
safeguards for his proper performance of them, except this — that if
he notably fails, he must have notice to quit ; for the crown is
responsible to the nation.

As in Richard II. a good title is marred by folly, so in Henry IV.
a bad title is patched up with policy. The ' vile politician Boling-
broke ' is incomparably a better ruler than Richard was, or Hotspur
would have been, who would have divided England into three, and
taken a step backwards towards the Heptarchy. Bolingbroke's
instructions to his son how to secure the crown, savour of the per
sonal politics of the day, which seems not to have discovered the
movements of political forces, but attributed everything to the
personal deportment of the prince. In these instructions the king
looks on the crown, not as a birth-right, but as the prize of the
ablest and most popular competitor. His purpose of a crusade
announced at the end of Richard II. " to wash the blood from off
his guilty head," is continued in 1 Hen. IV., with a utilitarian pur
pose of knitting together the unravelled threads of faction, and
making them " in mutual ranks march all one way."

X. 9. HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH CROWN. SUCCESS GIVES RIGHT. 435

In 2 Hen. IV. the king's conscience is still more uneasy, but his
repentance takes the very vulgar form of securing to himself and his
family still more certainly the gain of his crime. He comforts his
son by telling him he need not keep the crown by such means as
he, the father, used to gain and to keep it. He had been obliged
gradually to weed aAvay those who had helped him to get it. The
son will come peaceably to the inheritance and will not be forced to
cut off his friends, but only to keep them engaged in foreign quarrels
till the memory of the original fault of the title is worn away.

But though the king thus confesses to himself and his son, he
will not hear the reproach from any one else. He knows he is a
sham, yet he poses himself as God's substitute, and distributes death
to the man who publicly asks the question which the king nightly
puts privately to himself.

The drama of Henry V. shows how all questions of right are
overwhelmed by a great and striking success. The only unquestioned
king is the one man who shows himself the natural head and leader
of his people. Even plots which really turned on the question of
title (like that of Scrope and the Earl of Cambridge) the dramatist
puts aside as purposeless treasons, a sottish yielding to a diabolical
suggestion. It is as if the nobles, — whose function it is to watch
over the king's administration, and in the last resort to remove the
incapable sovereign, — have no right whatever to question the title of
a man whom the country approves. The plea of title is merely a
convenient method of getting rid of a bad sovereign, and of no
moment at all in the case of a good one.

In Henry V. the noble watch round the throne becomes useless
through the king's superiority. In Henry VI. it breaks up through
the personal ambition of the nobles. Gloucester is the best of them.
But his retainers are as troublesome to peaceable citizens as those of
Beaufort. The man who is foremost at court for the moment,
assumes all the authority of the king ; " our authority is his con
sent," says Suffolk (2 Henry VL, III. i. 316). " Now we three have
spoke it, it skills not greatly who impugns his doom " (Ib. 280).
The imbecility of the king affords no check to his barons, and the
country is ravaged by their lawlessness. A strong king, without

436 X. 9. MR R. SIMPSON. THE ENGLISH CROWN BECOMES ABSOLUTE.

scruples about his title, which utterly incapacitate Henry VI. from
all vigorous proceedings, and lead him to the acts of selfishness — the
disinheriting his own son, and pitiful plea to hold the crown during
his life — which were the determining moments of his downfall. In
this break-up of the old constitutional balance between the two
powers, the crown and baronage, with the Church as arbitrator, — for
the Church in the person of Beaufort becomes altogether immersed
in the strife for its own interests,— a new force naturally crops up —
the force of the people and the citizens. The country people under
Cade are entirely deficient in all political qualities. But the citizens
of London and Bury show themselves to be highly intelligent, and
their intervention is decisive.

The reign of Edward IV. is too slightly sketched to show
very clearly the change which really took place in the royal position.
The crown then became absolute, with the constitutional check, no
longer of the barons, but of the imperfectly organized Commons.
But enough is shown to prove that Shakspere knew of the change.
The Duke of York's first test of his chances is through Cade's
rising : —

By this I shall perceive the commons' mind,
How they affect the House and claim of York.

Suffolk, on the contrary, like the old nobles, loses no chance of
showing his contempt for the Commons, even when he is about to
be sacrificed to their vengeance. Henry knows that 'the city
favours ' the family of York (3 Henry VL, I. i. 67). When Edward
returns after his deposition, he is said to have come with " hasty
Germans and blunt Hollanders," but the populace also were with
him, and " many giddy people flock to him " ; but Warwick trusts to
his country tenantry : —

In Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends,
Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war.

True to his position, the last of the great barons confided in the
old feudal relations of lord and vassal, and was blind to the rise
of a new popular force in the great cities.

X. 9. HISTORY OF THE CROWN. THE KING PUTS DOWN THE NOBLES. 437

Richard III. states clearly a chief feature of the new regime of
Edward IV.

The world s grown so bad,

That wrens may prey where eagles dare not perch.

Since every jack became a gentleman,

There's many a noble person made a jack.

The strong government of the new king contented the commons
by repressing the riotous oppression of the nobles, and did not dis
content them if it raised some new men, relations of the queen, to
the level of the old nobility, to whose prejudices Richard ap
peals,

. . . The nobility

Held in contempt ; while great promotions

Are daily given to ennoble those

That scarce some two days since were worth a noble.

Richard himself so far recognizes the new base of his power, that
he founds his first claim to the crown on the acclamations of the
citizens. The poet is careful, in a previous scene, to show how
wisely the citizens can speak of political affairs ; and he is careful
also to show the means which Richard took to bolster up their pre
tended vote in his favour ; so that his election may not be an argu
ment against this new basis of power. After his election, the poet
shows how the king got rid of all his noble surrounding, and was
determined to be bound by no council. Richard's attempt to make
Buckingham the tool of his murder of the princes is an unhistorical
detail apparently added for no other purpose than to give Richard an
opportunity of describing his administration.

I will converse with iron-witted fools
And unrespective boys ; none are for me
That look into me with considerate eyes ;
High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.

And he immediately employs a page for the business Buckingham
declined. It is instructive to compare this with Caesar's judgment of
Cassius, as too wise a man to be trusted near an autocrat. When the
nobles lost their heads, plebeian administrators, " the cat, the rat,
and Lovel the dog," came to the top : nay, even boys appeared the

438 X. THE AUTOCRAT IN THE LAW-COURT. THE PEOPLE. THE CHURCH.

most convenient tools of the royal policy. This was in reality the
scheme of the Tudor government. The accession of Henry VIT.
changed nothing except the character of the monarch, whose ministers
drained the purses instead of the veins of his subjects, and whose
successor had to sacrifice the gold-suckers of his father to the popular
clamours, as Henry VII. had sacrificed the blood-suckers of Eichard.
In Henry VIII., Shakspere adds little to the conception of the
royal autocracy, except the substitution of the law courts for the
* unrespective boys ' of Richard, and the throwing on ministerial
shoulders the responsibility of the injustices for which the autocrat
ought evidently to be responsible. Thus Wolsey is made answerable
for the grievous taxation, which the king and queen repudiate.

X. THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE.

THE growth of the popular power might also be shown in these
plays, from its first dumb indication in King John, IV. ii., where the
Barons ask the liberation because the Commons murmur at his
imprisonment, and where the popular rumours about his death are
described (quite unhistorically), to the actual intervention of the
Commons in Henry VI. and Richard III. All that needs be noticed
here is the animosity against the Commons which seems to inspire
the second part of Henry IV.

XI. SHAKSPERE'S VIEW OF THE CHURCH.

THE feelings of Shakspere about the Church perhaps come out in
his representation of Churchmen. There is none good among them
from Pandulph to Cranmer, except the Bishop of Carlisle in Richard
II., and Rutland's tutor in Henry VI. All the prelates are
Machiavellians ; all the inferior clergy are conjurers or impostors.
Cranmer himself, with his excellent sentiments and his ready tears,

X. 11. MR R. SIMPSON. SHAKSPERE's VIEW OF THE HIERARCHY. 430

is only the willing instrument of the cruellest domestic injustice.
Did Shakspere colour these pictures, and (as in Beaufort's case) alter
and exaggerate history for the condemnation of the historical Church
which was established in the times he represented, or of the Church
which was present to his experience 1 If my theory of his reference
to passing events is true, we can hardly help supposing that in his
references to the superstitions of the lower clergy he had in his
mind's eye the exorcisms, the prophecies, the impostures of the fana
tics of his day, exposed by Lord Henry Howard, Bishop Harsnet
(whose book gave him some of the names of the devils in Lear),
Reginald Scot, Wm. Fulk, and others. The days of Nostradamus,
Cunningham, Love, Hill, Vaughan, and other countless prophesiers,
quite account for the frequent mention of this sort of thing, and for
Hotspur's reasonable impatience with Glendower. Then too it is quite
as likely that Shakspere glanced at the tyranny of the Whitgifts and
Bancrofts of his day, in his pictures of the bishops, as at the
memories of the old Papist prelates. One thing is certain, that the
only reproach which he allows himself to make against the old
religion is connected with the political pretensions of the papacy.
All the libellous satire against monks and nuns with which the old
King John is filled, was cleared away by him. He gives us quite
natural and touching pictures of the piety (superstitious in the eyes
of his generation) of Richard II. and Henry V. In fact, he is care
ful not to outrage any one's religious conscience, however severe he
may be on religious politicians. This abstinence on his part places
him in the strongest possible contrast to all his brother playwrights,
who all spent their deepest-sought wit in ridiculing and outraging
the religion which they did not like, whether that was Popery or
Puritanism. In this characteristic we may trace, not the influence of
Essex, for in Shakspere it was natural, and independent of any poli
tical views ; but a frame of mind which would naturally incline him
to take the part of the unlucky Earl.

438 X. THE AUTOCRAT IN THE LAW-COURT. THE PEOPLE. THE CHURCH.

most convenient tools of the royal policy. This was in reality the
scheme of the Tudor government. The accession of Henry VIT.
changed nothing except the character of the monarch, whose ministers
drained the purses instead of the veins of his subjects, and whose
successor had to sacrifice the gold-suckers of his father to the popular
clamours, as Henry VII. had sacrificed the blood-suckers of Eichard.
In Henry VIII., Shakspere adds little to the conception of the
royal autocracy, except the substitution of the law courts for the
' unrespective boys ' of Richard, and the throwing on ministerial
shoulders the responsibility of the injustices for which the autocrat
ought evidently to be responsible. Thus Wolsey is made answerable
for the grievous taxation, which the king and queen repudiate.

X. THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE.

THE growth of the popular power might also be shown in these
plays, from its first dumb indication in King John, IV. ii., where the
Barons ask the liberation because the Commons murmur at his
imprisonment, and where the popular rumours about his death are
described (quite unhistorically), to the actual intervention of the
Commons in Henry VI. and Richard III. All that needs be noticed
here is the animosity against the Commons which seems to inspire
the second part of Henry IV.

XL SHAKSPERE'S VIEW OF THE CHURCH.

THE feelings of Shakspere about the Church perhaps come out in
his representation of Churchmen. There is none good among them
from Pandulph to Cranmer, except the Bishop of Carlisle in Richard
II. , and Rutland's tutor in Henry VI. All the prelates are
Machiavellians ; all the inferior clergy are conjurers or impostors.
Cranmer himself, with his excellent sentiments and his ready tears,

X. 11. MR R. SIMPSON. SHAKSPERE*S VIEW OF THE HIERARCHY. 439

is only the willing instrument of the cruellest domestic injustice.
Did Shakspere colour these pictures, and (as in Beaufort's case) alter
and exaggerate history for the condemnation of the historical Church
which was established in the times he represented, or of the Church
which was present to his experience ? If my theory of his reference
to passing events is true, we can hardly help supposing that in his
references to the superstitions of the lower clergy he had in his
mind's eye the exorcisms, the prophecies, the impostures of the fana
tics of his day, exposed by Lord Henry Howard, Bishop Harsnet
(whose book gave him some of the names of the devils in Lear),
Reginald Scot, Wm. Fulk, and others. The days of Nostradamus,
Cunningham, Love, Hill, Vaughan, and other countless prophesiers,
quite account for the frequent mention of this sort of thing, and for
Hotspur's reasonable impatience with Glendower. Then too it is quite
as likely that Shakspere glanced at the tyranny of the Whitgifts and
Bancrofts of his day, in his pictures of the bishops, as at the
memories of the old Papist prelates. One thing is certain, that the
only reproach which he allows himself to make against the old
religion is connected with the political pretensions of the papacy.
All the libellous satire against monks and nuns with which the old
King John is filled, was cleared away by him. He gives us quite
natural and touching pictures of the piety (superstitious in the eyes
of his generation) of Richard II. and Henry V. In fact, he is care
ful not to outrage any one's religious conscience, however severe he
may be on religious politicians. This abstinence on his part places
him in the strongest possible contrast to all his brother playwrights,
who all spent their deepest-sought wit in ridiculing and outraging
the religion which they did not like, whether that was Popery or
Puritanism. In this characteristic we may trace, not the influence of
Essex, for in Shakspere it was natural, and independent of any poli
tical views ; but a frame of mind which would naturally incline him
to take the part of the unlucky Earl.

442

XL ON THE "WEAK ENDINGS" OF SHAKSPEKE,

WITH SOME

ACCOUNT OF THE HISTORY OF THE VERSE-TESTS IN GENERAL.

BY JOHN K. INGRAM, LL.D.
(Read at the Society's Tenth Meeting, Friday, November 13, 1874.)

WHEN Malone attempted for the first time to ascertain the chrono
logical order of Shakspere's plays, he relied principally on external
evidence, as, for example, on the entries in the books of the Sta
tioners' Company, and on supposed references to the plays in the
works of other writers. But he did not by any means overlook
internal evidences, nor, amongst these, that supplied by the changes
in the poet's versification. To the "rhyme-test" he attached nearly
as much importance as Mr Fleay. In a passage of his well-known
Essay, which Mr Furnivall has quoted (in Transactions !N". S. Soc.,
vol. i., p. xix.), he says, " whether in process of time Shakspere grew
weary of the bondage, or whether he became convinced of its impro
priety in a dramatick dialogue, his neglect of rhyming (for he never
wholly disused it) seems to have been gradual. As, therefore, most
of his early productions are characterized by the multitude of simi
lar terminations which they exhibit, whenever of two early pieces it
is doubtful which preceded the other, I am disposed to believe (other
proofs being wanting) that play in which the greater number of
rhymes is found to have been first composed." And, on the Win
ter's Tale, l he observed in the first edition of the same Essay, that
the circumstance of there not being a single rhyming couplet
throughout the piece, except in the chorus, made him doubt whether

1 He afterwards saw that the Winter's Tale is one of the poet's latest
works. See his Shakspere, Pref. p. xliii., vol. i., of Dublin impression of 1734.

XI. PROP. INGRAM ON THE HISTORY OF THE VERSE-TESTS. 443

it ought not rather to be ascribed to 1G01 or 1602 than to 1594, the
date to which he then assigned it. To the greater frequency of
" alternate rhymes " in the early plays he refers in his Dissertation
on Henry VI., and the occurrence of the " doggrel measure " he
gives as a reason for placing the Taming of the Shrew among Shak-
spere's early productions.

But these indications lie on the surface ; and Malone was alto
gether without the qualifications for studying the more intimate and
subtle characters of verse. He was quite unable to appreciate the
rhythm of poetry. As Craik says of him, " he had no notion what
ever of verse beyond what he could obtain by counting the syllables
on his lingers." l By such a mechanical process it is not possible
even to number the " double " or " feminine endings ;" though, if the
arrangement of the text has been previously settled, a just apprecia
tion of sense and connection, without feeling for verse, will suffice to
distinguish " end-stopt lines." Malone, in the Dissertation on
Henry VI. , observes on both the last-mentioned characters in relation
to the marks which distinguish Shakspere's versification from that of
his dramatic predecessors. But he does not seem to have thought
of considering the question whether they would supply notes of time
in relation to the series of Shakspere's own works.

Roderick, in an often-quoted note on Henry VIIL, printed in
Edwards' Canons of Criticism, had with remarkable sagacity pointed
out the fact (of which, however, he did not see the real significance),
that " there are many more verses in it than in any other play which
end with a redundant syllable " — that they amount, indeed, to " very
near two " such " to one in any other play." Malone, after quoting
these remarks, goes on to say, "The peculiarities which he ["Roderick]

1 The obtuseness of Malone's ear is amusingly shown by the remarks in his
Preface on the metrical errors of the Second Folio. He affirms

< Gloster, we'll meet ; to thy cost, be sure."

' And so to arms, victorious father.''

' Curs'd be I, that did so ! All the charms."

' What wheels, racks, fires ? What flaying, boiling ? '•

' Prove it, Henry, and thou shalt be king."

to be regular lines, because sure, arms, charm*, fires are to be treated as
dissyllables, and Henry as a trisyllable.

444 XI. PROP. INGRAM ON THE HISTORY OF THE VERSE-TESTS.

has animadverted on (if such, there be) add probability to the con
jecture that this piece underwent some alterations after it had passed
out of the hands of Shakspere." If such there be! a plainer
revelation there could not be of the writer's utter incapacity for the
appreciation of verse.

ISTo further progress, so far as I am aware, was made in the study
of the " verse tests," till the appearance of Mr Hickson's article on
the Two Noble Kinsmen, in 1847; and Mr Spedding's on Henry VIII. ,
in 1850. In both these Essays, especially in the second, which
appears to me a perfect model of Shaksperian criticism, there were
excellent remarks on the poet's versification in general, and his
feminine endings in particular ; and Mr Spedding's contained the
first example (leaving out of account the germ in Roderick's paper) of
the application to Shaksperian metre of the strict numerical analysis,
since advocated and practised with so much effect by Mr Fleay.
These essays were also the earliest examples of the systematic use of
verse-tests to discriminate the work of different authors in the same
play. But in neither of them 1 do I find any distinct mention of
the " weak-ending test," which yet, as I shall show, would have'been
well worth considering in relation to the problems which it was their
object to solve.

Bathurst's excellent little book, published in 1857, was the first
in which the whole subject of Shakspere's versification was examined
in relation to the chronology of his plays. This book, I remember,
met with but scant recognition at the hands of some of our periodical
critics, and I do not think that Mr Fleay has at all clone it justice
when he speaks of the author as having " indicated the un-stopped
line " as a chronological test. He not merely " indicated " this, but
examined the corresponding variations in Shakspere's verse with
great fulness of detail through the whole series of the plays ; and so
just, acute, and scholarly is his handling of the subject, that his
work deserves to remain one of the classics of Shaksperian criticism.
But what I am now specially concerned to notice is that in Bathurst
the "weak-ending test" for the first time comes distinctly into
view. He describes and exemplifies the corresponding metrical phe-
1 Nor in Spalding's Letter on the Two Noble Kinsmen, 1833.

XI. I>ROF. INGRAM ON THE HISTORY OF THE VERSE-TESTS. 445

nomenon, though rather more slightly and loosely than was desirable ;
and points it out as a peculiarity of the " latter part " of the poet's
life : but he does not use it for the discrimination of authorship. l

In the same year with Bathurst's book appeared the late Pro
fessor Craik's English of Slidkespeare. In the Prolegomena to this
work the author in some measure supplied (no doubt unconsciously)
what was wanting in Bathurst by a more complete and accurate
treatment of the weak ending, discriminating the two species (or
degrees) of this phenomenon, and correcting, through his study of it,
a good many passages of Shakspere's text, which before that time had
been wrongly arranged. But he does not, any more than his prede
cessor, use it for the detection of the work of different hands in the
same piece.

In an " Afternoon Lecture" delivered at Dublin in 1863 (Bell
and Daldy, 1863), I called attention to the whole subject of the
chronology of Shakspere's plays, and in particular to the weak
endings as a character of the " last .years " of his " author-life," but
added nothing to what Bathurst and Craik had done.

The next step in advance was due to Mr Furnivall. In the
Prospectus of the New Shakspere Society he spoke of the ascertain
ment of the order of the plays by metrical tests, as one of the princi
pal objects to be attained through its labours, and gave a Table of the
proportions of " unstopt " to " stopt lines " in three of the earliest and
three of the latest plays. Then came Mr Tleay, who had been work
ing on the verse-tests for years before publishing anything. Em
phatically insisting on the necessity of a precise numerical statistic of
each of those tests — on the substitution, as he phrases it, of the
quantitative for the qualitative method of using them, he decisively
drove out of this field of inquiry vague talk and general impression,
which are always untrustworthy, and often misleading. In the nu
merical method he had, as we have seen, no predecessor but Mr

1 The only place where he approaches this use is in p. 104, where he says
(on Henry VIII.'), " Of weak endings Roderick has said nothing. They
abound here, and even in the part given to Shakspere. But not in the Fare
well and the speech to Cromwell." The " and even " here shows that he
entirely misconceived the facts, and so missed the point he might have made.
Mr Spedding came nearer this point (p. 2 of his Essay in Transactions, New
Shakspere Society, vol. i.), but without touching it.

446 XI. PROF. INGRAM ON THE HISTORY OF THE VERSE-TESTS.

Spedding and Mr Furnivall.1 Mr Fleay has also applied the verse-
tests on a larger scale than ever before, and on the whole, as it
appears to me, with decided success, to the discrimination of the
workmanship of different authors. His most important services of
this kind, however, have to do, not with Shakspere, but with other
dramatists, particularly Beaumont, Fletcher, and Massinger.

The verse-tests which Mr Fleay has chiefly used for Shakspere, are
those founded on the number of rhymes, Alexandrines, short lines,
and double endings. He has more recently indicated a new test, the
redundant syllable in the middle of the verse ; but we cannot, I
think, yet determine what the value of this is likely to be. Mr
Furnivall has chiefly devoted himself to the working out of the
" stopt-line " test.

As I observed in the Academy of April 25, 1874, Mr Fleay, in
the papers written by him before that date, gave little or no attention
to the weak ending.2 He has since informed me that he has by him
full statistics respecting its occurrence in Shakspere. If these had been
published, my labours would have been rendered unnecessary, but up
to the present there exists in print no attempt whatever at a complete
account of this metrical peculiarity. I may be permitted to add that
Mr Fleay has certainly not made due use of his statistics, for a very
slight regard to them would have made it impossible to entertain the
erroneous views which he at first put forward, but has since retracted,
respecting Cymbeline and Henry VIII.

In entering on an examination of the weak endings of Shakspere,
my chief object is to exhibit fully the facts as they are, following the
same exact method which Mr Fleay has taught and practised with

1 No English predecessor. But, as Professor Dowden has pointed out
in the Academy, Sept. 12, 1874, Herfzberg, in Ulrici's edition of Schlegel
and Tieck's Translation of Shakspere, had in 1871, in a Preface to Cymleline,
besides showing himself familiar with the general ideas relating to the verse-
tests, counted the feminine endings, Alexandrines, and rhymes in that play. .
Of the weak endings (Proklitische Formworter) in Ci/mbellne, he gives many
examples, and says, they " finden sich sehr haufig ; " but he does not count
them. He farther gives the proportion of feminine endings in 16 other plays.

2 The editor of the Academy mentioned in a note to my letter what I had
not previously known, that Mr Furnivall in the first Discussion of the New
Shakspere Society had noticed the value of the weak ending towards fixing
the date of Cijnibcline. In Mr Spedding's letter on the Pause-Test (March,
1874) he called attention to the necessity of counting the weak endings.

XI. PEOF. INGRAM ON SHAKSPERE'a LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS. 447

respect to the other verse-tests. The conclusions I draw will thus be
capable of being checked by others, and of being corrected, if erro
neous. And first, I shall explain in detail the way in which I have
proceeded in grouping and counting the instances of the metrical
phenomenon in question.

It is evident that amongst what have been called as a class weak
endings, there are different degrees of weakness. Broadly, as Craik
has already observed, there are two such degrees, which require
to be discriminated, because on the words which belong to one of
these groups the voice can to a certain small extent dwell, whilst the
others are so essentially proclitic in their character (to use a term
applied by Hertzberg in dealing with this subject) that we are forced
to run them, in pronunciation no less than in sense, into the closest
connection with the opening words of the succeeding line. The
former may with convenience be called " light endings," whilst to
the latter may be appropriated the name (hitherto vaguely given to
both groups jointly) of " weak endings." And the first step in our
inquiry will be to set out a complete list of the endings of each kind
which occur in Shakspere's plays.

Now, in order to eliminate, as far as possible, any personal or
arbitrary element in distinguishing these two sorts of words, I have
taken two writers who are certainly not marked by any tendency to the
general metrical peculiarity we are considering, namely, Milton in his
two Epics, and Wordsworth in the Excursion; and I have examined
what words, partaking of the character in question, they have taken
the liberty of placing at the end of their verses. I have inferred that
these are words which, in the more rapid and vivacious movement of
the drama, might be so ptic6<l-without approaching the extreme of the
proclitic structure. The words so singled out, and some which,
as being strictly similar, they seemed to carry with them, though I
did not find them thus used in those poets, I have treated as
light endings ; those which turned out to be of too fugitive and
evanescent a kind ever to form the close of grave non-dramatic
verse, I have regarded as weak en&ings. The result of this method is
to furnish us with the following as our lists of Shakspere's light and
weak endings respectively.

TRANSACTIONS. 29

4-18 xi. PROF. INGRAM'S LIST OF LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS.

LIGHT ENDINGS.

am, are, art, be, been, but (=:only), can, could, did,1 do,7 does,1 doth,1
ere, had,1 has,1 hath,1 have,1 he, how,2 I, into, is, like, may, might,
shall, shalt, she, should, since, so,3 such,3 they, thou, though, through,
till, unto, upon, was, we, were, what,2 when,2 where,2 which, whilst,
who,2 whom,2 why,2 will, would, yet (= tamen), you.4 [54 in all].

WEAK ENDINGS.

and, as, at, but (= sod and =* except), by, for (prep, and conj.\
from, if,5 in, of, on, nor, or, than, that (rel. and conj.), to, with [17,
or — if we count but, for, and that, twice over — 20 in all].

The cases in which these words, though really proclitic, must
not be counted, are the two following, which it is easy to distinguish,
and which form a very small proportion of the whole : 1. When

1 Only when used as auxiliaries. Dost occurs so in Pericles, IV. vi. 122 ;
but this is not in Shakspere's part.

2 When not directly interrogative.

3 When followed immediately by as. Such also when followed by a sub
stantive with indefinite article, as "such A man." And so, when it = if only.

4 Must and ought I have regarded as too substantial and weighty words to
be included in the list. Shall and should may sometimes have as much weight
as these words, in which cases they ought not to be counted. Shalt I find only
in A. and C., V. ii. 155, where it is emphatic. Dissyllables, as among, before,
without, I have excluded ; the only exceptions are into and unto, and upon,
which, though .weightier than to and on, are yet very light. In the combina
tions and yet and but yet, the yet is strongly accented, and ceases to be light.

5 Except in the combination as if, which is really equivalent to a dissyl
labic word, and is neither weak nor light, any more than e.g. because. The
same remark applies to an if. I should consider unemphatic it (nominative)
as a weak ending : but it does not occur in Shakspere, unless we accept Mr
Fleay's re- arrangement of Pericles, where in Scene 2 he prints,

" It is a good constraint of Fortune it
Belches upon us."

Rhakspere does not place the possessive pronoun in this position. We have no
such lines in him as Beaumont's (Thierry and Theodoref)

" Made only worthy in his love and her
Thankful acceptance,"

in which, however, the slight contrast of his and her somewhat strengthens
the latter.

XI. PROF. INGRAM ON SHAKSPERE's LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS. 449

they are emphatic (which will be found to affect the light endings
only) ; and, 2. "When there is a distinctly appreciable pause in the
sense after them, which will arise almost always from their being
followed by a parenthetic clause.1

In using the lists, it will not do simply to note any instance
in which the words above enumerated are found at the end of a
line, and where, in (say) the Globe Edition, which is the one I have
used, there is no stop after it. The lines must be read intelli
gently, and the rhythm understood ; the eye, acting mechanically,
will mislead. Thus, we must not count such cases' as the fol
lowing; the final words not being proclitic at all.

" Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not."

" For 't cannot be
"We shall remain in friendship."

" I weigh' d the danger which my realms stood in
By this my issue's fail."

" As Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in
With rocks unscaleable."

I shall now go through the plays, arranging them in an order
which, except for the last eight, I do not intend as definitive, and
I shall give the numbers of both kinds of endings in each, and, in
the late plays, also the proportion of both kinds separately and
combinedly to the entire number of the verse lines in each. I
have taken the numbers of verse lines in the several plays from
Mr Fleay2 (Transactions, K S. S., vol. i. p. 16). They include
both blank verses and five-measure rhymed ones.

1 As examples, take, of the first case :

"Let . . . the Phoenicians go a ducking ; we

Have used to conquer, standing on the earth."
Of the second,

"But by—
As heav'ns forefend — your ruin."

2 I would strongly advise the appointment by the New Shakspere Society
of a " Counting Committee," to fix beyond doubt the numbers of lines of dif

ferent sorts in the several plays, and to verify all the figures brought out by the
application of the different verse-tests.

450 xi. PROP. INGRAM'S TABLE OP LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS.

NUMBERS OF LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS IN THE
SEVERAL PLAYS.

Love's Labour's Lost

Comedy of Errors

Two Gent, of Verona

Midsum. Night's Dream

Romeo and Juliet

Richard II.

Richard III.

John

Merchant of Venice

1 Henry IV.

2 Henry IV.
Merry Wives
Henry V.
Much Ado

As You Like It
Twelfth Night
All's Well
Hamlet

Measure for Measure
v Julius Ceesar
Othello
Lear

Troilus and Cressida
Macbeth
,Timon

•»Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus

Pericles (Shakspere's part)
Tempest
Cymbeline
Winter's Tale
Two Noble Kinsmen (non-

Fletcherian part)
Henry VIII. (Sh/s part2)

1 There is one weak ending in the text as arranged by Craik, viz. at in iv. 1.

2 For the sake of completeness, I append the numbers bf light and weak
endings in some plays which are not wholly Shakspere's, but in which these
numbers do not help us to discriminate his work : —

Light. Weak.

1 Henry VI. 3 1

2 Henry VI. 2 1

3 Henry VI. 3 0
Taming of Shrew 1 1
Titus Andronicus 5 0

No. of
light
endings.

No. of
weak
endings.

No. of
Verse iinei
in play.

Percentage
of light
endings.

Percentage
of weak
endings.

Percentage
of both to.
gether.

3

O

0

0

0

0

0

I

6

I

4

0

4

O

7

0

6

I

5

2

i

0

i

0

2

0

I

I

2

0

3

I

ii

2

8

0

7

0

10

O1

2

0

5

I

6

O

21

2

14

?

III2

1.26

?

?

71

28

2803

2-53

.OO

3-53

60

44

2563

2.34

.71

20

10

719

2.78

•39

4.17

42

25

1460

2.88

•71

4-59

78

£2

2692

2.90

•93

4-83

57

43

1825

3.12

2.36

5-48

5o

34

1378

3-63

2-47

6.10

45

37

1146

3-93

3-23

7.16

PROF. INGRAM ON SHAKSPERE*S USE OF LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS. 451

From this table the following results seem to be deducible :
"l. During the first three-fourths (or thereabouts) of Shakspere's
poetic life, he used the light endings very sparingly, and the weak
endings scarcely at all.

\J 2. The last fourth (or thereabouts) is obviously and unmistake-
ably distinguished from the earlier stages by the very great increase
of the number of light endings, and, still more, by the first appear
ance in any appreciable number, and afterwards the steady growth,
of the weak endings.

3. Hence, in any discrimination of periods which is founded on
metrical considerations, this last may be called the "weak-ending
Period."

4. To this Period Cytribeline undeniably belongs.

5. Julius Ccesar belongs, not to this, but to the preceding
Period.

6. Troilus and Cressida, placed by Mr Fleay in his latest writing
on Shaksperian Chronology (Macmillan's Mag. for Sept. 1874) in
the last period, really belongs to the preceding one.

* 7. The weak endings do not come in by slow degrees, but the
poet seems to have thrown himself at once into this new structure of
Yerse ; 28 examples occurring in Antony and Cleopatra, whilst there
are not more than two in any earlier play.1

8. Hence, the argument brought forward by Craik, and which I
had heretofore accepted as sound, and used against Mr Fleay, that J.
Ccesar and Antony and Cleopatra must be separated by a wide
interval, because differing so much in this character of the verse,
will have to be given up. They must, indeed, be so separated ; but
not on this ground.

9. As long as the light endings remain very few, no conclusion
with respect to the order of the plays can be based on them.

10. But the very marked increase of their number in Macbeth,
showing a strong development of the same tendency which, further
on, produced the large number of weak endings, seems to show that
it was the latest of the plays preceding the weak-ending period.

1 This statement ("not more than two ") may possibly be modified by the
result finally arrived at respecting the text of Timon.

452 XI. PROF. INGRAM ON TIMON AND PERICLES.

With respect to Timon, Pericles, TJie Two Noble Kinsmen, and
Henry VIII., it will be necessary to speak at greater length.

The difficulty of dealing with Timon is very great, in consequence
of the unsettled arrangement, as well as faulty state, of the text.
The entire play, as given in the Globe ed., contains 16 light and 5
weak endings. But it is certain that the whole of it is not Shak-
spere's, and it is very probable that Mr Fleay's edition contains all
the verse, at least, which is his. The omission of the rest would
reduce the light endings in the Globe ed. to 13, and the weak end
ings to 2. But Mr Fleay, besides removing the non-Shaksperian
portion, rearranges what he retains ; and the effect of this is to give
14 light and 7 weak endings. I think it extremely doubtful whether
he is right in several of his rearrangements. Two of the 7 weak
endings are supplied by a single speech in iv. 3, which he turns from
prose to verse. It is observable in Timon, that the longer speeches,
such as in the late plays are pretty sure to furnish weak endings,
yield none ; and I therefore think it very unsafe to produce them by
new arrangements of the very short speeches. The place of Timon
is, without doubt, before the opening of the last period, but not long
before it.

I suppose scarcely any one will now question the opinion of Mi-
Tennyson, Sidney Walker, and Mr Fleay, as to the portions of
Pericles which belong to Shakspere. But even if it should be
thought probable that he also wrote parts of the prose scenes, that
will not disturb conclusions based on metrical facts, and founded on
the assumption that Mr Fleay's " Marina " comprises all Shakspere's
portion of the verse in the play. When we seek to apply the weak-
ending test to this portion, we are met by the same difficulty as in
Timon, arising from the unsettled arrangement of the text. This is
undoubtedly improved in some places in Mr Fleay's edition ; but in
other places where he differs from the Globe ed., I do not feel at all
sure that he is right. However, in the Table I have adopted his
text, and in it we find 20 light and 10 weak endings. We thus
obtain percentages which lead to the conclusion that Pericles
belongs, not, as Mr Fleay asserts in Macmillaris Magazine, to the
third, but to the last, or weak-ending, period. It will come next

XL PROF. INGRAM ON THE AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF HENRY nil. 453

before the Tempest ; and it is impossible not to feel its close re
semblance in tone, and in the general character of the verse, to that
play ; though the Marina impresses me, from its slightness in many
places, rather as a first sketch or outline, intended to be afterwards
filled up, than as a piece completed as far as it goes.

An examination of the weak endings in Henry VIII. strikingly
confirms the conclusions of Mr Spedding respecting the two different
systems of verse which co-exist in that play. In the Shaksperian
portion, as marked off by him, there are 45 light endings against 7
in Fletcher's part, and 37 weak endings against 1 in Fletcher's part.
And these weak endings occur in every Shaksperian scene. The one
weak ending in Fletcher's portion occurs in a scene (iv. 1) which has
not been uniformly assigned to Fletcher, and which, it is curious to
observe, of all the Shaksperian scenes in the play approaches, in the
matter of the feminine ending, nearest to Fletcher. Mr Spedding
has wavered somewhat about the authorship of the 4th Act generally,
and has suspected a third hand, perhaps Beaumont's, in it. Mr
Emerson thinks the account of the coronation plainly bears the great
master's stamp ; he says it is " like an autograph." I differ with
hesitation from such men. But I must confess that the passage
about the coronation seems to me distinctly Fletcherian ; and I think
Mr Fleay quite right in refusing to acknowledge the presence of a
third hand in the play. That we should meet with one weak ending
in Fletcher's part appears to be just what might be expected. I have
examined the Custom of the Country, which is certainly all his, and
I find in it just three (and, from, tvith). If Beaumont had con
tributed to the non-Shaksperian part of Henry VIII., we must, I
think, have found more weak endings in that part, for he was a good
deal addicted to them, as may be seen, e. g. by examining his share
of Tliierry and Theodoret. The date, also, which has been assigned
by Mr Spedding to Shakspere's portion of Henry VIII. is confirmed
by the Table, in opposition to the views of Elze and others. It
appears to be without doubt his latest work ; a conclusion which
quite falls in with what is known from an external source as to the
production in 1613 of a play which there is every reason to believe
was the same.

454 XI. PROF. INGRAM ON THE AUTHORS OF THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN.

With respect to Tli e Two Nolle Kinsmen, the weak-ending test
confirms what has "been otherwise shown by Mr Hickson and others,
namely, that here again there are two different systems of verse. In
Fletcher's part there are 3 light endings to 50 in the other portion,
and 1 weak ending to 34. The weak endings are found in every
non-Fletcherian scene but two. One is i. 4, in which there are,
exclusive of a song, but six lines in all. The other is iii. 3, which,
curiously enough, as Mr Furnivall remarks, the stopt-line test would
give to Fletcher. The scene is one about which, notwithstanding
what has been said by Mr Hickson, there is not much to mark the
authorship.

The answer to the question — Who was the author of the non-
Fletcherian portion of this play 1 — does not force itself on my mind
with the same clear evidence as the conviction that the non-Shak-
sperian part of Hen. VIII. is by Fletcher. The choice of the story,
in which the passion is, after all, of an artificial kind, the toleration
of the "trash" which abounds in the underplot, the faintness (as I
must persist in regarding it) of the characterization, and, in general,
the absence, except in occasional flashes, of the splendid genius which
shows itself all through the last period of Shakspere, I have always
found very perplexing. In reading the (so-called) Shaksperian part
of the play, I do not often feel myself in contact with a mind of the
first order. Still, it is certain that there is much in it that is like
Shakspere, and some things that are worthy of him at his best ; that
the manner, in general, is more that of Shakspere than of any other
contemporary dramatist ; and that the system of verse is one which
we do not find in any other, whilst it is, in all essentials, that of
Shakspere's last period. I cannot name any one else who could
have written this portion of the play. The weak-ending affords a
ready test of the correctness of Knight's notion, otherwise so
improbable, that Chapman was the writer. I have examined the
play of Bussy d'Ambois, and do not find in it a single instance
of the weak ending, and, turning rapidly over Chapman's whole
works, I see no evidence that he was ever at all given to it. If
Shakspere be — as we seem forced to believe — the author of the
part of The Two Noble Kinsmen now usually attributed to him,

XL PROF. INGRAM ON THE WEAK-ENDING TEST. 455

this will take its place in the series of his works between the
Winter's Tale and Henry VIII.

Before quitting the subject of Tlie Two Nolle Kinsmen, I must
remark on an oversight in Mr FurnivalTs Note on the end-stopt lines
in this play (Transactions, 1ST. S. Soc., vol. i. p. 65*). He says the
test there treated of fails in part, because it gives Shakspere's ii. 1
to Fletcher. Now the fact is, that Mr Hickson assigns this scene to
Fletcher, and thus the test in question really confirms, in this in
stance, the orthodox view as to authorship. Mr Furnivall was led
into mistake by the different numeration of the scenes in different
editions. What he calls ii. 1, contains the prison-scene, which Mr
Hickson, separating it from the prose which precedes it, calls ii. 2.
Here, then, is an interesting unconscious testimony to the value of
the verse-tests.

Let me close this paper with two remarks, which I make for the
purpose of preventing misapprehension.

1 . Though I have concerned myself principally with the weak-
ending test, as being my special subject, I do not consider it as of
the foremost importance among the verse-tests. The end-stopt line
must be placed before it, as beio capable of application to the whole
series of the poet's works. Both may be regarded as branches of
that comprehensive one, proposed by Mr Spedding1 under the (not
quite satisfactory) name of the pause-test ; which, taken in its entire
extent, would represent in the most complete manner the structure
and life of Shakspere's verse. But though the weak endings may be,
in principle, viewed as cases coming under the pause-test, it will always
be practically convenient to study them apart as special characters.
And they have this recommendation, that they may be taken, for the
last period of Shakspere, where alone they are of value, as standing
for the whole type of verse, with which they are uniformly associated
in that period. They supply, in fact, a very sensitive indicator of
Shakspere's latest manner, though themselves forming but a small
element in it.

2. I quite recognize the necessity of subordinating verse-tests in
general to the ripe conclusions of the higher criticism, if these two

1 Transactions, N. S. Soc., vol. i. p. 26.

456

XI. PROF. INGRAM ON THE WEAK-ENDING TEST.

sorts .of evidence should ever be found at variance. But I believe
that the more thoroughly the former are understood, and the more
scientifically they are used, the more they will be found in accord
ance with the best aesthetic judgments. What appears to me sur
prising is, not that the verse-tests should sometimes appear to sanc
tion wrong conclusions, but that they should, to such a remarkable
extent, agree amongst themselves, and harmonize with every other
mode of investigation which can be applied to the same questions.

XI. LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS IN ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 457

APPENDIX.

LIST OP LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS IN THE PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE'S
LAST. PERIOD.

THE weak endings in the following list are printed in Italics.
The numbers of the lines are as in the Globe Edition for all the plays
except Pericles and the Two Noble Kinsmen. The first set of
numbers for Pericles are according to Mr Fleay's arrangement ; in
the T. N. K. I follow those supplied by Mr Harold Littledale in
his MS. copy of the edition of 1634, which he has kindly placed at
my disposal. It is to be observed that these latter represent, not
verses, but printer's lines in that edition.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

I. i. 60 who

III. 4. 30 be

64/07*

I. 4. 7 or

III. 6. 36 I

92 am

10 are

44 and

103 shall

I. 5. 30 was

III. 7. 6 we

1 1 6 upon

36 hath

iSwill

119 have

II. i. 13 where

28 we

124 with

30 'tis

48 and

126 were

II. 2. 3I I

77 as

129 like

33 should

III. ii. 3 I

136 since

55 but

15 shall

149 whom

72 you

1 6 will

1 68 where

96 do

47 but

IV. 2. 17 in

113 but

59 that

IV. 4. 3 ^

145 and

63 who

5 art

198 that

66 that

36 might

247 is

67 would

IV. 5. 1 6 have

II. 3. 12 in

III. 12. ii and

IV. 6. 12 on

19 is

21 she

17 but

II. 5. 15 when

III. 13. 15 she

21 with

22 whilst

29 will

IV. 8. 6 been

II. 6. 1 8 would

31 are

1 7 from

III. i. 10 and

35 will

21 can

III. 2. 47 can

58 he

25 had

458

XI. LIST OF LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS IN CORIOLANVS.

IV.

9. 4 was

6 1 is

135 shall

9 did

79 does

153 does

IV.

14. 12 is

V. i. 58 we

162 should

1 8 has

Y. 2. 13 but

163 by

44 and

20 I

1 86 as

65 of

43 ty

210 shall

96 what

521 .

335 thou

99 be

63 shall

36413

IV.

15. 24 shall

91 were

365 which

56 to

122 have 366 shall

7i light, and 28 weak, endings.

CORIOLANUS.

I.

T. 75 and

263 and

IV. i. 28 and

117 that

278 and

48 and

178 is

II. 2. 41 and

51 shall

181 are

44 that

IV. 2. 6 they

243 thou

50 whom

IV. 4. 23 upon

269 by '

63 than

IV. 5. 8 1 who

275 shall

88 awd

83 be

I.

2. 20 when

122 did

86 if

23 was

129 were

100 am

T.

4. 58 and

146 and

118 did

I.

5. 7 would

II. 3. 58 when

133 that

1 6 for

136 have

150 shall

I.

6. 23 have

148 you

IV. 6. 16 ^7

49 did

192 might

29 was

60 but

196 and

8 1 and

78 is

III. i. 1 6 might

85 awd?

86 shall

67 am£

97 and

I.

9. 19 be

94 but

131 a£

35 <**

(= only)

IV. 7. 2 felrf

43 shall

219 would

35 was

44 be

264 and

V. 2. 14 been

88 should

276 you

94 £^aw

I.

10. 13 where

III. 2. 21 if

V. 3. 30 should

II.

i. 189 and

32 £7za£

32 which

207 and

55 ^

85 with

218 but

60 and

98 should

232 in

62 where

113 thou

238 may

96 he

119 till

241 will

III. 3. 71 in

167 which

243 they

82 hath

V. 4. 40 if

245 which

100 we

V. 6. 6 arad

262 would

115 would

17 whilst

XI. LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS IN PERICLES AND TEMPEST. 459

39 and
46 are
68 where

74 and

75 to
83 what

60 light, and 44 weak, endings.

95
108 that
152 he

PERICLES (Sh.'s part), IN MR FLEAY'S TEXT.

Sc.

z.

2.

3-

5-

25 may
44 and
52 you
35 doth
5 2 it
89 been
1 6 may
36 and
6 which
7 be
28 and

(53 and)
6 1 and
65 for
17 am
23 be
28 will
42 upon

44 yet
56 that
92 am

8.

1 06 which

174 but

193 in

195 like

238 am
12 she
21 was
40 may
58 can
67

20 light, and n weak, endings : but, the and in 5, 53 being
supplied by Mr Fleay, I have counted the weak endings as 10. The
same portion of the play in the Globe edition has 1 5 light, and 5
weak, endings, as below :

III. I.

25 may

29 for

III. 3.

36 and

IY. i.

6 which

7 be

64 and

V. i.

50 upon

64 is
105 am
117 which
187 but
209 like
211 than
254 am

v. 3.

12 she
22 was
27 is
42 may
60 can
69 I

TEMPEST.

I. 2.

I have
10 would
12 and
17 who
43 that
54 and
56 and
67 should
80 who
85 was

1 08 be

142 but

1 60 that

467/0?-

163 with

II. i. 130 at

167 that

207 and

1 68 might

240 is

181 upon

286 who

283 with

289 that

295 till

II. 2. 7 but

334 how

10 which

356 like

12 I

388 upon

173 how

462 be

III. i. 5 but

465 till

7 is

460

XI. LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS IN CYMBELINE.

1 6 had

6 thou

147 I

64 did

14 £m£

157 have

71 I

1 6 may

164 nor

III.

2. 6 1 will

1 1 8 and

191 she

1 06 is

149 awe?

194 have

III.

3. 15 they

179 through

197 I

f

32 of

265 thou

199 with

40 since

Y. i. 27 is

214 when

73 have

36 that

246 on

100 and

53 tfiat

310 where

IV.

I. 2 I

42 light, and 25 weak, endings.

CYMBELINE.

I.

i. 4 whom

491 but

12 I

19 such

102 which

35 be

31 whom

107 as

38 yet

72 but

127 you

62 as

87 what

141 have

III. 3. 32 is

145 is

146 and

48 that

148 were

154 who

87 who

172 been

173 hath

102 as

I.

3. 1 7 but

193 since

III. 4. ii with

(=

only)

II. i. 58 that

77 art

20 from

II. 2. 1 8 that

94 &w£

33 could

II. 3. 50 may

132 am

I.

5. 7 have

55 which

152 yet

ii been

7 9 for

161 and

12 how

117 /or

1 86 with

17 in

124 %

189 o/

19 as

II. 4. 44 which

III. 5. 32 like

24 be

48 we

34 for

35 WM1

55 hut

68 may

39 is

(= only)

74 but

51 for

71 for

75 0ra

53 nor

115 or

97 is

66 how

124 are

III. 6. 10 'tis

71 such

n. 5. 3 1

1 6 was

I.

6. 17 I

10 M7&Y7&

28 and

29! ,

III. i. 12 is

57 should

40 and

17 with

6 1 who

42 would

55 which

76 they

53 he

64 ^7z,<m

III. 7. 4 are

7 2 /or

74 for

IV. 2. 8<u

78 might

III. 2. 10 were

20 why

I

XI. LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS IN ITIXTER's TALE.

461

64 'tis

V. i. 7 you

224 and

221 nor

V. 2. 12 &tt*

240 */

222 nor

V. 3. 76 shall

303 hath

232 what

V. 4. 22 though

316 who

303 be

105 in

317 is

306 is

116 is

318 hath

375 than

148 such

3381

389 when

150 which

339 a*

IV.

3. 10 and

V. 5. 6 if

384 which

34 but

12 am

388 with

36 since

46 had

409 for

IV.

4. 29 and

53 to

411 might

46 by 133 shall

431 can

78 light, and 52 weak, endings.

WINTERS TALE.

I. 2. i been

134 where

50 which

77 for

149 they

55 uPon

95 ere

181 'twere

65 is

10 i when

II. 2. 10 from

96 but

117 'twere

14 I

113 might

129 are

34 be

124 and

195 by

38 be

1 60 is

237 thou

59 is

432 can

239 been

6 1 to

456 but

302 that

651

487 ly

308!

II. 3. at/

491 I

359 since

25 nor

499 may

373 and

77 thou

500 or

382 be

83 he

514 nor

385 but

171 be

$19 if

409 as

203 hath

523 whom

420 to

III. 2. 24 and

$2$ that

425 and

60 of

533 is

432 to

87 as

538 may

435 vou

126 have

569 with

442 I

164 with

581 who

448 shall

237 shall

591 as

449 and

238 unto

V. i. 10 and

461 if

III. 3. i upon

21 would

II. i. 16 shall

42 that

51 I

5° I

IV. i. ii to

79 such

66 and

20 be

in is

89 is

IV. 4. 6 'tis

122 may

97 that

43 be

133 08

462 XI. LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS IN TWO NOBLE KINSMEN.

V. 3.

169 you 39 has 69 that

183 with 40 arid 74 but

191 and 43 that 104 as

33 is 55 he

(in III. ii. 42), though not included in my list of light

endings, seems entitled to be treated as one.
in this play 57 light, and 43 weak, endings.

If so, we shall have

TWO NOBLE KINSMEN (Sh.'s part).

I. i. 89 into

36 but

95 f°r

46 have

113 was

91 be

131 were

103 you

143 than

I. 4. 4 may

197 shall

III. i. 19 with

198 when

23 thou

204 will

24 that

205 and

25 be

V.

206 what

27 if

226 which

28 that

237 with

41 art

255 far

46 such

I. 2. 2 in

48 in

22 would

5° to

29 in

57 that

45 and

76 to

48 to

93 and

51 upon

1 03 for

63 am

140 till

94 when

III. 2. 7 so

96 to

1 6 can

V.

123 which

V. i. 32 where

127 will

45 and

I. 3. 9 they

75 *>e

1 6 and

96 thou

26 if

104 I

27 we

114 who

50 light, and 34 weak, endings.

Fletcher's part of same play.

IT. 4. 71 what

III. 5. 44 would

III.

III. 3. 43 and

3 light, and i weak, ending.

4-

122 I

129 in
133 which
139 unto

158 should

159 I

162 should
167 may
6 like
9 is
28 was
58 to
64 that
69 fo
73 might

94 and

95 are
113 could
126 with
137 was
147 did

25 shall
56 when
88 that
95 for
118 and

134
142 unto

6. 128 be

XI. LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS IN HENRY VIII.

463

HENRY viii. (Sh.'s part}.

I.

i. 5 when

86 upon

58 and

22 were

93 could

63 which

8 i have

II. 4. 1 4 for

68 and

86 of

45 for

98 for

90 was

54 may

99 to

06 that

70 £/*«£

100 O/

132 like

76 tao*

in have

152 but

101 to

126 which

154 when

116 £7iem

145 which

194 were

122 and

167 could

200 I

142 has

173 and

216 from

148!

1751

I.

2. 15 nor

149 or

1 80 is

48 are

150 might

194 did

66 for

152 such

195 and

69 by

153 might

202 with

70 but

174 and

V. i. 1 1 be

71 am

187 had

23 could

73 be

189 should

25 does

82 is

190 than

42 have

99 with

196 that

70 and

1 66 but

199 tw

7i of

195 upon

201 are

77 will

198 would

203 which

101 shall

211 may

III. 2. 33 '/

119 that

II

. 3. 8 than ,

35 ^

142 into

6 1 and

51 shall

169 be

83 could

45 light, and 37 weak, endings.

Fletcher's part of same play.

II

. 2. 43 upon

40 be

Y. 4. 85 when

III

. 2. 343 be

114 which

V. 5. 40 when

IV

. i. 30 and

171 like

7 light, and i weak, ending.

I add a similar list for Macbeth, to verify what has been said in
tne Paper respecting that play.

36 were

37 upon
i6be
17 been

IT.

TRANSACTIONS.

50 would

69 upon

70 upon
13 and

30

37
(= only)
III. i. 78 been
no what

464 XI. LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS IN MACBETH AND TIMON.

III.

119 could
6. 38 he

43 might
IV. i. 147 be

IV. 3. 67 been 85 been

70 may 97 should

73 be 122 and

77 such 189 hath

21 light, and 2 weak, endings. I have not counted they in I. i.
37, " doubly " there seeming plainly to be surplusage.

Also for Timon, following the Globe Text :

I.

I.

53

as

III.

2.

73

in\

149

may

III.

3-

6

for]

I.

II.

2.
2.

i59

256
149

are
[be]

have

III.
III.

5-
6.

45
46
114

[bel
wej
)e

192

you

IV.

i.

31 may

206

have

IV.

2.

46 [to]

IV.

V. 4.

3. 70 to
240 thou
277 was
5 such
53 we
67 which
76 which

1 6 light, and 5 weak, endings.

Of the above, those marked [ ] belong to the part of the play
regarded by Mr Fleay as not Shakspere's. Mr Fleay's arrangement
introduces the following, which do not appear in the Globe edition :

Sc.

i. 1 8 you
185 and
3. 105 in

7.

72 if

7 3 for

102 and

He has, thus, in his text 14 light, and 7 weak, endings.

Though the above lists have been very carefully made and
revised, it is possible — even probable — that omissions may be found
in them. But I request that any one who may take the trouble of
verifying them will not too readily assume that any additional
instance of a light or weak ending he may come upon has been in
advertently passed over by me. Let him first consider whether the
word is really proclitic where it occurs, and, if it be, then — whether
it is not supported either by emphasis or by a distinctly appreciable
pause after it. It may be here observed that though weak endings
of the latter class (i. e. where a pause follows) have been excluded
for the sake of strict accuracy, they, no less than the kinds of instances
included in the Lists, are foreign to Shakspere's earlier stages ; so
that, if any one, for chronological purposes, should propose to take
them into account in the late plays, I should have nothing to object.
But this would not sensibly affect the results at which I have
arrived.

405

XII.
WHICH AEE HAMLET'S 'DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES'?

BY W. T. MALLESON, B.A., UNIV. COLL., LONDON,

AND

J. R. SEELEY, M.A., PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF

CAMBRIDGE.

(Read at the eleventh Meeting of the Society, Friday, Deo. 11, 1874.)

[In the following discussion, the suggestion that Hamlet's ' dozen or sixteen lines '
occur in the long speech of the player-king is spoken of as if it were a new one.
It occurred to me independently : and though I could scarcely believe that no one
had thought of it before, yet the editions that happened to be within my reach
knew nothing of it, and I found it to be new to all my Shaksperian friends, I now
find that I was right in thinking that it could not possibly have been reserved
for me to make such a discovery, and that the credit of it belongs to Mr and Mrs
Cowden Clarke, who published it long since in their annotated edition of Shakspere.
I am happy to have learned this in time to save myself from even a momentary
appearance of claiming what does not belong to me. Mr and Mrs Cowden Clarko
have also anticipated some of my arguments, as will be seen by their note, which
I now reprint. — J. R. SEELEY, March 10, 1875.
Act III. Sc. ii. Speech of the player-king : ' Purpose is but the slave to memory,'

to ' their ends none of our own.'

"We have an idea that this is the passage ' of some dozen or sixteen lines ' which
Hamlet has proposed to ' set down and insert ' in the play, asking the player
whether he could ' study ' it for the occasion. The style of the diction is markedly
different from the remainder of the dialogue belonging to this acted play of ' The
Murder of Gonzago ' ; and it is signally like Hamlet's own argumentative mode.
4 This world is not for aye,' the thoughts upon the fluctuations of ' love ' and
' fortune,' and the final reflection upon the contrary current of ' our wills and
fates,' with the overthrow of our 'devices,' and the ultimate diversity between
our intentions and their ' ends,' are as if proceeding from the prince himself. Hia
motive in writing these additional lines for insertion, and getting the player to
deliver them, we take to be a desire that they shall serve to divert attention from
the special passages directed at the king, 'and to make these latter seem less
pointed. We have fancied that this is Shakespere's intention, because of the em
phatic variation in the style just here. Observe how very different are the myth
ological allusions to ' Phoebus,' ' Neptune,' ' Tellus,' ' Hymen,' ' Hecate,' and the
stiff sentential inversions of ' about the world have times twelve thirties been,'
discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must,' &c. ; and, moreover, observe how
exactly the couplet commencing the player-king's speech, ' I do believe,' &c., and
the couplet concluding it, ' To think thou wilt,' &c., would follow on conjoinedly,
were the intervening lines (which we suppose intended to be those written by
Hamlet) not inserted." — From CasseW s Illustrated Rhakespere, edited by Charles
and Mary Cowden Clarke, Vol. III. p. 415.J

466 XTI. 1. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S ' DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES '

I. MR MALLESOWS ARGUMENT.

Hamlet. Dost thou hear me, old friend ; can you play the murther of
Gonzago ?

1 Player. Ay, my lord.

Hamlet. We'll have't to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a
speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down, and insert in't ?
could you not ?

1 Player. Ay, my lord. — Hamlet, Act II. Sc. ii. (lines 562-9).

A SHORT time ago appeared in the Academy, a statement written
"by Mr Furnivall, that Professor Seeley had suggested that the
' dozen or sixteen lines,' inserted by Hamlet in the sub-play of the
* Murder of Gonzago,' might be found in the following speech of
the Player-King, Act III. Sc. ii. :—

I do believe, you think what now you speak ; 196

But, what we do determine oft we break.

Purpose is but the slave to memory ;

Of violent birth, but poor validity : 199

Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree ;

But fall unshaken, when they mellow be.

Most necessary 'tis that we forget

To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt : 203

What to ourselves in passion we propose,

The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.

The violence of either grief or joy

Their own enactures with themselves destroy ; 207

Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament,

Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.

This world is not for aye ; nor 'tis not strange

That even our loves should with our fortunes change ; 211

For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,

Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.

The great man down, you mark, his favourite flies ;

The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies. 215

And hitherto doth love on fortune tend :

For who not needs shall never lack a friend ;

And who in want a hollow friend doth try

Directly seasons him his enemy. 219

But, orderly to end where I begun, —

Our wills and fates do so contrary run,

That our devices still are overthrown :

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own : 223

So think thou wilt no second husband wed ;

But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead. 225

These are very interesting lines, but they reflect, as Gervinus
points out, not upon the murdering usurping King, but upon Hamlet
himself; if they are those Hamlet wrote, we find him turning aside

xii. 1. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S i DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ' ? 467

from the immediate purpose of the player's performance, which was
to ' catch the conscience of the King,' in order to brood over his own
character, and in words of his own to point the moral of the play of

Hamlet : —

But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory ;
Of violent birth, but poor validity.

And again : —

Our wills and fates do so contrary run,
That our devices st411 are overthrown :
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.

One must confess, that there would be nothing foreign to Ham
let's character in thus suddenly putting aside action for disquisition ;
yet when he is eagerly ordering the performance of the Murder of
Gonzago for 'to-morrow night,' the earliest possible time, and adds : —
' You could for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines
which I would set down and insert iii't ? ', it is difficult to believe
that he is only anxiously seeking an opportunity of dissertating upon
man's feebleness of purpose : —

What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending doth the purpose lose.

And on this point we are not left to conjecture only; the
terrible soliloquy beginning, 'Now I am alone, 0 what a rogue
and peasant slave am I,' immediately follows his interview with the
players, and shews clearly what was in his mind, when he proposed
his addition to the play.

About my brains ! I have heard,

That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,

Have by the very cunning of the scene

Been struck so to the soul, that presently

They have proclaimed their malefactions ;

For murther, though it have no tongue, will speak

With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players

Play something like the murther of my father,

Before mine uncle : I'll observe his looks ;

I'll tent him to the quick ; if he but blench,

I know my course. The spirit that I have seen

May be the devil : and the devil hath power

To assume a pleasing shape ; yea, and, perhaps,

Out of my weakness and my melancholy

(As he is very potent with such spirits),

468 Xn. i. WHICH AKE HAMLET'S 'DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES'?

Abuses me to damn me : I'll have grounds
More relative than this : The play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

The plot of this play already resembled the black crime that had
been revealed to Hamlet alone, and his hope was that his lines might
drive the dreadful resemblance home to the very heart of the mur
derer, so that the guilty creature sitting at the play might if possible
be driven to proclaim aloud his ' malefaction,' or, if not that, at
least so to lose self command as to betray his guilt to the eyes which
would be ' rivetted to his face.'

How important, for this end, the speech was, we may learn from
Hamlet's special instructions to the players for its delivery : —

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the
tongue ; but if you mouth it, as many of you players do, I had as lief the
town-crier had spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much — your hand
thus : but use all gently : for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say)
the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may
give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to see a robustious periwig-
pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags> to split the ears of the
groundlings ; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable
dumb shows and noise : I could have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing
Termagant ; it out-herods Herod : pray you, avoid it.

From this, too, we may gather something of the nature of the
lines ; there was in them for certain the torrent, tempest, and whirl
wind of passion, a passion which Hamlet was very anxious that no
l-obustious periwig-pated actor should be allowed to tear to tatters ;
and if this be, as I think, beyond a question, let the reader consider
whether in the philosophic lines suggested by Professor Seeley, even
the most ' robustious ' fellow could find anything of passion, with
which ' to split the ears of the groundlings.'

Take now the conversation with Horatio just before the play
commences. Hamlet says : —

There is a play to-night before the king ;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father's death.
I prithee, when thou seest that act a foot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle : if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
And my imaginations are as foul

xii. i. WHICH ARK HAMLET'S ' DOZEN OK SIXTEEN LINES ' 1 469

As Vulcan's stithe. Give him heedful note :
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face ;
And, after, we will both our judgments join
To censure of his seeming.

If the remainder o'f the play of Hamlet had by some calamity
been lost and it stopped here, would any one have doubted that this
' one speech ' in this ' one scene ' must have been the speech of
Hamlet's writing ?

When the time of the representation approaches, Hamlet, in
terrible suppressed excitement, lies down among the audience at
Ophelia's feet, and seems to relieve the tension of his mind by gross
and bitter jesting. Such words from Hamlet, the prince and scholar
to poor Ophelia, who had * sucked the honey of his music vows/
appear at first almost inexplicable. It is quite insufficient to say that
the license of that age admitted expressions which would be shocking
now ; — No other lover in Shakspere uses such language ; Rosalind,
Juliet, Miranda are quite otherwise addressed. Nor can I endure
to find here any support for Goethe's theory, that the strong defence
of perfect purity was at all wanting to her who had been Hamlet's
' soul's idol.' "We must remember that at this moment Hamlet's
heart is full of the infidelity of his mother as well as of the murder
of his father. Even before he had learnt from the Ghost the full
measure of his mother's guilt, he had said in his anguish at her
marriage within a month — ' a little month ' — after his father's death,
' Frailty thy name is, woman ; ' and when the Ghost has left him he
first apostrophises her, l 0 most pernicious woman,' and puts the
murderer, ' the smiling damned villain/ in the second place. His
mother has destroyed his faith in every woman, he believes virtue
to be ' as wax/ he separates from Ophelia, and bids her enter a
nunnery ; and now, when in spite of himself he feels her attractions
arid lies down at her feet, he reminds himself by insults and coarse
jokes of the frailty and corruption of women.

But let us go on to the performance itself; it begins, as did the
old moralities, with a dumb show : — -

Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly ; the Queen embracing him.
She kneels and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and
declines his head upon her neck ; lays him down upon a bank of flowers ; she,

470 xn. i. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S 'DOZEN OB, SIXTEEN LINES"?

seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown,
kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns ;
finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The poisoner, with some
two or three mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead
body is carried away. The poisoner woos the Queen with gifts ; she seems
loath and unwilling awhile, but, in the end, accepts his love. (Exeunt.)

' Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours
poison in the King's ears.' Here beyond doubt we have the " one
scene " coming near the circumstance of the death of Hamlet's father
as the Ghost describes it : —

' Sleeping within mine orchard,
My custom always in the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of mine ears did pour
The leprous distilment,'

In fact the parallel is so exact as to make one suspect that
Hamlet altered the manner of the murder in the old play to make it
tally precisely with the awful secret fact. If not, it is strange that
so odd, if not impossible, a way of committing murder should have
occurred in both the plays.

Here then I believe we should look for Hamlet's addition, the " one
speech," the crisis of his plot, and it is here during the representation
that his excitement becomes painfully intense, and almost uncon
trollable, so that, when Lucianus the murderer enters, Hamlet at
Ophelia's feet strangely interrupts, calling aloud : —

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.

Although interruptions of 'poor players' by gallants of the
Court and great people were in those times common enough, one can
hardly help pausing to commiserate the actor thus unexpectedly
greeted by his patron at the important moment of his first entrance.
Lucianus is the principal character of the piece, the Y-illain on whose
daring crime and ready smooth-faced plausibility the plot turns, and
is doubtless the part that would have been given to the leading
tragedian, probably to the very actor who had previously so finely
recited ^Eneas' description of the rugged Pyrrhus, and of whom
Hamlet, an excellent judge of acting, said that he

xii. i. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S 'DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES'] 471

Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
That from her working all his visage wanned ;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit.

Well, Lucianus, recovering as he best might from the abrupt
announcement of his name and quality, proceeds with the business
of his part, taking off the crown (as above) from the sleeping king,
kissing it, and exerting himself so to force his soul that all his visage
might wear a murderous aspect, when Hamlet, now in the very agony
and fever of his impatience, interrupts him again, with : —

Begin, murderer ; leave thy damnable faces and begin. Come ; —

The croaking raven
Doth bellow for revenge.

Then Lucianus, thus adjured, with all the self-possession he can
retain, does begin : —

Thought black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing ;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing :
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately,

{Pours the poison into tlic sleeper's ears.)
Hamlet (interrupting again).

He poisons him i' the garden for his estate. His name's
Gonzago ; the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian :
You shall see anon, how the murtherer gets the love of
Gonzago' s wife.

Ophelia. The king rises.

Hamlet. What! frighted with false fire!

Queen. How fares my lord?

Pol. Give o'er the play.

King. Give me some lights — away !

All. Lights, lights, lights !

[Exeunt all lut Hamlet and Horatio.'}
Hamlet. Why let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play ;

For some must watch, while some must sleep;
So runs the world away.

Would not this, Sir, and a forest of feathers (if the rest of my fortunes turn
Turk with me), with two Provincial roses on my razed Shoes, get me a fellow
ship in the cry of players, Sir?
„ Horatio. Half a share.

Hamlet. A whole one, — ay.

472 xn. i. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S 'DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES'?

And then again : —

Hamlet. 0 good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand
pound. Didst perceive ?

Horatio. Very well, my lord.

Hamlet. Upon the talk of the poisoning.

Horatio. I did very well note him.

It is of course to the startling dramatic success of his play-
altering in piercing the King's conscience that Hamlet refers when he
jestingly says that it would get him a fellowship in a cry of players.
The playwright who would tinker old plays as well as write new,
was in Shakspere's time a very valuable member of a company of
players, and certainly the interpolated passage containing * the talk
of the poisoning ' had had a wonderful effect.

I submit then that Hamlet's addition to the play begins with the
speech of Lucianus. It contained probably more than the half
dozen lines which were all Lucianus was able to deliver before
Hamlet a third time interrupted him, and the King rose frighted
with false fire. After the murder, and before the entrance of the
Player Queen, was Lucianus perhaps to drop some words hinting at
his next aim, the seduction to a sudden second marriage of that
* seeming virtuous queen 1 ' Were perhaps fear and horror at finding
himself at last an actual murderer to take possession of his soul ?
Whence are those strange words of Hamlet, ' The croaking raven
doth bellow for revenge,' which he seems to utter as a sort of
cue to Lucianus, and yet they are not in Lucianus' short speech 1
Were they part of Hamlet's own lines, which Were to be subse
quently uttered, but which came whirling first to their author's
excited brain ? If so, even if it were certainly so, it would be ' to
consider too curiously* to endeavour to reconstruct any of the never-
delivered portion of the speech, But wherever the words come from 1
— from Hamlet's unspoken lines, or, as is more probable, from some

1 Mr F. J. Furnivall thinks these words ma)r be an allusion to the Old
Hamlet noticed in Lodge's Wits JHiserie, 1596, 'the ghost which cried so
miserably at the theater like an oister wife. " Hamlet revenge,1" ' and says the
player would catch the reference at once. Mr Richard Simpson, on the other
hand, considers the allusion to be to two lines in the old play, The True
Tragedy of Richard III., ' The screeking Raven sits croking for Revenge ;
Whole h«ads of beasts comes bellowing for Revenge.'

xii. i. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S 'DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES'? 473

old play in the Pistol vein, known to the public then, lost now — •
what Hamlet means by them is plain enough. The Ghost is again
present to his mind. The Spirit whom he has doubted cries out once
more for revenge/ In a moment the murderer will be put to the
question, to moral torture, all will be clear, and Hamlet * know his
course.' At such a crisis the actor's delay, however artistic, is intol
erable: he shouts to him to begin, that he may be certain of his
Uncle's guilt and sweep to his revenge.

Remember, too, that the Raven is the Danish typical bird, and
therefore no unlit emblem of ' the majesty of buried Denmark ; ' — as
fitting at any rate, one might urge, if driven hard, as ( True penny,'
' Old Mole,' and < Fellow in the Cellarage.'

The plot succeeds, the murderer discloses himself, the ghost is
believed ; but Hamlet fails, and in the next scene but one the Ghost
re-appears visibly to his * tardy son ' : —

Do not forget ; this visitation

Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

Lastly, is there in the lines themselves anything to make us say,
' Not by Hamlet V The style is certainly stiff, cumbrous, and loaded
with adjectives, but Hamlet would naturally try to imitate the stilted
style of the rest of the play as in its first lines : —

Player King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground ;
And thirty dozen moous with borrow'd sheen,
About the world have times twelve thirties been ;
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
Unite commutual in most sacred bands*

And one may even add that Hamlet himself in his letter 'to
the celestial and my souls idol the most beautified Ophelia,' shows
that he did not use to shrink from a string of adjectives even when
they led him to so ill a phrase as ' most beautified.'

Of one thing we may be certain, that the great Master did not
write at random, and that since he lays so much stress upon Ham
let's inserted lines, refers to them so often, and makes so much of
the plot turn upon them, his own intention in the matter must have
been perfectly clear to himself.

If this be so, they ought with due patience to be discoverable by

474 XII. 2. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S ' DOZEN OB SIXTEEN LINES ' ]

us. I shall be glad if I am thought to have contributed something to
the true solution of a little problem which if not important is at
least interesting.

W. T. MALLESON.

II. PROFESSOR SEELETS COMMENTS ON MR MALLESON'S
PAPER, AND ON THE PLAY.

MY DEAR F0RN1VALL,

You will remember that I did not pronounce any particular
passage in the sub-play to be the ' 12 or 16 lines ' of Hamlet. What I
did was simply to say, in conversation with you, that I thought I knew
which the lines of Hamlet were, and to ask you to try whether you
could not identify them also. You did try, and laid your finger at
once upon the very lines I had in view.1 I mention these facts for
two reasons. First, because I think my identification of secondary
importance, compared to my observation that here is a Shaksperian
problem which has been overlooked,2 that Shakspere evidently
meant us to ask which the '12 or 16 lines ' were, and that appa
rently no one (except Mr and Mrs C. Clarke) has thought of doing
so. Secondly, the identification gains a good deal of probability
from the fact that two persons — who did not know of Mr and Mrs
C. Clarke's note — made it without any concert.

I acknowledge a good deal of weight in some of Mr Malleson's
objections, but I think I can answer them, and they have not shaken
my opinion.

Let me begin by stating the case in favour of the c 12 or 16 lines'
being some of those which make up the long speech of the Player-
King that begins : — •

I do believe you think what now you speak !

In all such discussions there is great danger of running too much
into mere speculation and conjectural interpretations of character.

1 This was mainly because Professor Seeley had also told me that the linoa
contained Hamlet's explanation of his own character. — F. J. F. ^

a Except by Mr and Mrs Cowden Clarke ; see p. 465.

XII. 2. "WHICH ARE HAMLET' S ' DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ' 1 475

For this reason I think it most important at the outset to consider
what characteristics the inserted speech we are in search of must
necessarily have in order" that we may not have recourse to conjecture
at any rate sooner than is necessary.

There are two such characteristics, then.

(1) It must consist of some 12 or 16 lines.

(2) Being an insertion, it must be such a speech as can be removed
without affecting the action of the play.

Now these two characteristics belong to the passage above
referred to, and to that passage alone. The speech of the Player-
King consists in all of 30 lines. The next longest speech, that
beginning ' So many journies may the sun and moon,' consists ot
only twelve. It is evidently part of the plan that the sub-play
should be written in short speeches, for Hamlet is made to
ridicule the extreme shortness of the prologue, ' as brief as woman's
love ! '

This single long speech is therefore conspicuously exceptional.
It cannot all be spared — the Player-King must by the necessity of
the position say something to the same effect — and if it could all be
spared it could hardly be the insertion, for it would be too long,
30 lines instead of 12 or 16. But it is quite easy to spare about
that number of lines from the middle of it, and such a retrench
ment would bring the speech to about the average length of the
speeches in the sub-play.

As this passage not only answers the conditions, but is the only
passage which does, it might seem unnecessary to add another word.
But this assumes that Hamlet's insertion is actually to be found at
full length in the sub-play as it is acted. Now of course it is pos
sible, as the sub-play is interrupted in the acting, that the passage in
question belongs either entirely to the part which was unacted, or
partly so, that is, that the speech which was interrupted by the
rising of the King would, if it had not been so interrupted, have ex
tended to 12 or 1 6 lines. This latter is Mr Malleson's theory, and as
I admit it to be not impossible, we must look for additional evidence.

This brings us to the question, whether the passage whose claims
I support answers the other probable conditions as well as I have

476 XIT. 2. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S ' DOZEN OK SIXTEEN LINES ' 1

shown that it answers the two necessary conditions. Is it such
an insertion as Hamlet would be likely to make either from
the object he has in view, or, if we must enter into that, from his
character 1

Now one part of this question, and that the most difficult part,
we can fortunately answer at once. It is admitted by Mr Malleson
that the lines in question are strikingly in the character of Hamlet,
so strikingly that, in fact, he calls them a dissertation on Hamlet's
character. I do not think they are that ; I think they are a disserta
tion on his mother's character; but, then, they are just such a disserta
tion as Hamlet would write, for they explain her weakness by those
general reflections about the changeableness of human purpose, and
the feebleness of human conviction, which are so usual with him. I
think there can be no doubt that if we wished to select from the
sub-play the lines most characteristic of Hamlet we should fix on
these without a moment's hesitation.

But the speech may answer very well to Hamlet's general cha
racter, and yet not be such as to serve the particular purpose with
which he inserts a speech.

This is the main point in Mr Malleson's argument, and it seems
at first sight a strong objection—' Hamlet's object in inserting a speech
is to charge the King with murder, to draw the moral of the play,
and drive it home upon the King's conscience. The speech in
question, however in other respects it may be suitable to Hamlet's
character, cannot be the speech inserted by him, because it does
nothing of this kind.'

ISTow it is evident enough that Hamlet's object in having the play
acted is to work upon the King's conscience and bring out his guilt ;
but how does it appear that this is the object with which he inserts
the speech?

Mr Malleson says,, 'The plot of the play already resembled the
black crime that had been revealed to Hamlet alone, and his hope
was that his lines might drive the resemblance home to the very
heart of the murderer.' Certainly Hamlet hoped that the play would
have this effect ; but where does Mr Malleson find that he hoped his
lines would have this effect 1 Mr Malleson puts this as if it were a

XII. 2. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S ' DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES "? 477

matter of course, but if he will reflect I think he will find that he
has taken it for granted without any reason.

I cannot imagine how it could occur to Hamlet that there was
any occasion for inserting a speech with this object. The play might
surely be trusted to do its own work. The King's conscience was to
be worked upon by a representation of an action of which not only
the results and motives were similar, but which was in itself actually
identical with that committed by himself. He had murdered his
sleeping brother by pouring poison into his ear ; he is now to see
poison poured into the ear of a sleeping uncle on the stage. I can
not imagine how any speech could make the application plainer. The
hint was surely broad enough ; in fact, it seems a little too broad, for it
is difficult to understand how the King could allow matters to go so
far, and why he did not break up the play as soon as the dumb show
had informed him what the action was to be.

Has Shakspere, then, said anywhere that the inserted speech had
this object? Mr Malleson quotes one expression, which looks no
doubt a little like it :•—

If his occulted guilt
Do not itself discover in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen, &c.

This ' one speech' does no doubt remind us of the 'spsech that
I would set down and insert in it,' but after all why should it be this
particular speech more than any other 1 I confess I think it can be
shown not to be by the method of 'reductio ad absurdum.' For
this ' one speech ' in which the King's guilt discovers itself is the
speech beginning : —

Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing.

Now it is impossible that this speech, at least as it stands, can be
the inserted speech, for it satisfies none of the conditions. It is not
12 or 16 lines, but only six; it is not an inserted speech, but it
belongs essentially to the action, and the play could not exist
without it. Mr Malleson, seeing this, tries to represent these six
lines, not exactly as the inserted speech of Hamlet, but as the
beginning of it, and supposes that the rest would have followed had

478 XII. 2. WHICH ABE HAMLET'S ' DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ' 1

not the King broken up the play. It is impossible to suppose exactly
this, for the six lines in question form only one sentence, and must
therefore belong entirely to the play itself in its original form, unless
we suppose, what I think no one will suppose, that the murder was
to be done in dumb show. We must therefore imagine, not part of
Hamlet's inserted speech, but the whole of it, to have been broken
off by the King's rising, and if so it turns out after all that the King's
guilt is not discovered by Hamlet's inserted speech, but by lines
coming just before it. This seems to me a conclusive proof that the
' one speech ' in the passage above quoted is not to be identified with
the 'speech of 12 or 16 lines, which I would set down and insert
in it.'

Thus there remains no reason at all for supposing that the object
of Hamlet's inserted speech was to work upon the King's conscience.
Mr Malleson seems to have been led to take it for granted by the
rout Hamlet makes about his anxiety to be quite sure of the King's
guilt, to be quite sure that the ghost is not a tempter. He pictures
Hamlet as in a state of wild excitement throughout the scene, as
having his thoughts intensely fixed upon this question of the murder,
and therefore he thinks it revoltingly improbable that in this state
of mind Hamlet should write a speech not about the murder at all,
but on his mother's fickleness. But surely I am not singular in
believing that these professions of Hamlet are not to be taken
seriously. His misgivings that the ghost may be a tempter, that the
King may not be guilty after all, are just like his resolution later in
the play, not to kill the King at a moment when he will be likely to
go to heaven, mere pretences intended to excuse delay and inaction.
He is no doubt interested in watching the effect of his experiment
upon the King's mind, and very triumphant when it proves success
ful, but I do not believe that his thoughts are absorbed by that sub
ject in the way Mr Malleson supposes. In fact I take a very different
view of the state of his mind. It seems to me that Shakspere
takes great pains to impress upon us that the uncle's guilt and the
duty of punishing it are an annoying subject with Hamlet, that
they weigh upon his mind without interesting it, and that his only
desire is to postpone and keep at arm's length everything connected

XII. 2. WKIOH ARE HAMLET1' S ' DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES* ? 479

with them. Hamlet complains that he cannot feel proper resent
ment for ( a dear father murdered/ that the player is more interested
in an imaginary Hecuba than he in such a dreadful reality, arid he
tries to rouse himself into a passion by violent abuse of his uncle.
But you see how artificial the language is, and that his real feeling
for his uncle is only contempt, that he regards him simply as a
vulgar knave, whom there is no satisfaction in thinking about, and
no comfort even in hating, So far from supposing that the inserted
speech ought by rights to be about this uncle, I should be very
much puzzled to find that Hamlet's private reflections had been so
much occupied about him, as would be implied in his writing 12 or
16 lines about him, to make clear what was already as clear as the
day, or to ' bring home,' as Mr Malleson says, what was brought
home already.

But is there no subject about which Hamlet fesls strongly
in which we can believe him to be so much interested as to
write verses on it? Certainly there is, and it is precisely the
subject with which the lines I idtenify with Hamlet's inserted
speech deal; namely, the conduct of his mother. It is this
which really fills his mind, and it is because he is so intensely
pre-occupied with this, that he is so languid about what he feels
ought to engage his attention more, Before even he suspected
his uncle's guilt, before the appearance of the ghost, he is shown to
us so much depressed as to think of suicide on account of his
mother's levity ; and when he has his mother face to face with him
he shows an energy and vehemence we might have thought foreign
to his character. As Mr Malleson very truly says, it is his mother
who, by putting him out of humour with all women, causes him to
behave so strangely to Ophelia, and the coarseness of his language
to her in this very scene shows that he is brooding on the subject at
this particular moment. It is, then, I maintain, a priori, most likely,
from what we know of Hamlet's feelings, that this would be the
subject of his inserted speech.

But we must consider Shakspere's objects as well as Hamlet's.
Supposing the speech to be on the subject of the murder, even if it
answered Hamlet's purpose, it was of no use to the poet. It would

TRANSACTIONS. 31

480 XII. 2. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S * DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES * 1

be merely an additional means, very superfluous as I think, of
exposing the King's guilt ; about Hamlet's character and views, it
would tell us nothing that we did not know before ; it would not
help the poet forward at all in his difficult exposition. Quite other
wise if the speech dealt with the mother, not with the uncle ; then
it has point ; then we understand why the poet introduces it. It is
a broad hint to the reader, and it was important to multiply such
hints as much as possible, that we are not to trust Hamlet's profes
sions, that the experiment of the play, with all its parade of in
genuity and the vengeance which is to follow the King's exposure, is
a mere blind by which he hides both from himself and from Horatio
that he does not intend to act at all, and that he means to go on as
he has begun, brooding interminably upon the frailty of his mother,
the probable frailty of Ophelia, and the worthlessness of all
women.

Notice that when the speech which I call Hamlet's insertion and
the Player-Queen's short answer to it have been delivered, Hamlet
turns to his mother and says, ' Madam, how like you this play 1 '
This I take to be Shakspere's quiet hint to the reader that he is to
mark these speeches especially, and that there is something particular
in them.

To sum up, then, my case is this : —

(1) In the long speech of the Player-King may be found a
passage of ' 1 2 or 16 lines.'

(2) This passage can be omitted without damage to the action.

(3) No other such passage can be found in the sub-play, so that
those who reject this passage are driven to the shift of supposing that
Shakspere after promising us such a passage and leading us to expect
it has not given it.

(4) The passage suits Hamlet's general character better than any
other in the sub-play. This is admitted by Mr Malleson.

(5) It suits Hamlet's views and feelings at the moment, which
are occupied only secondarily with his uncle's guilt, primarily with
his mother's misconduct.

(6) The insertion of it serves an object of the poet by showing
more clearly the doubleness of Hamlet's conduct, and that while he

xii. 3. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S ' DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ' 1 481

was forced reluctantly by a sense of duty in one direction, his feel
ings and reflections were flowing irresistibly in another.

Sincerely yours,

J. E. SEELEY.

III. MR M ALLESOWS REJOINDER TO PROF. SEELEY S
COMMENTS.

MY DEAR FURNIVALL,

MR SEELEY'S reply to my paper is a striking one, but I
cannot give way, so you must allow me a brief reply.

Mr Seeley says that there are two ' necessary ' characteristics for
the speech; it must consist of some 12 or 16 lines; and being an in
sertion it must be such a speech as can be removed without affecting
the action of the play. I think this is somewhat strained, Hamlet
never says he lias written a passage of so many lines and inserted it.
If he had said so the matter would be simpler. We only know that
he intended to write and insert some lines of the number of which
he was not himself certain, '12 or 16.' When he sat down with
the play before him he may have written 20 or 26, and indeed, if I
accepted the Player-King's speech as partly Hamlet's, I should claim
for him all of it, except only the two first and two last lines, which,
.omitting the intervening 26, still go fairly together: —

I do believe you think what now you speak 1

But what we do determine oft we break. 2

So think thou wilt no second husband wed, 28

But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead. 30

And altho' Mr Seeley says that it is quite easy to spare about 12 or
16 lines from the middle of this speech, he does not tell us, as I
think he should do, which lines he fixes upon, that we might judge
how far they do bear upon the conduct and character of Hamlet's
mother.

Again, I do not see why the inserted lines must be such as can
be removed without affecting the action of the play ; may not
Hamlet have inserted his lines in substitution for others which he

482 xn. 3. WHICH ABE HAMLET'S ( DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ' ?

struck out ? If so Mr Seeley's argument against « Thoughts black,
hands apt, etc.,' because necessary to the action of the piece, will fall
to the ground.

But the most important part of Mr Seeley's paper, to my mind,
is his defence of the passage he has selected on the ground that it
refers to the guilt of Hamlet's mother, and describes her character.
He believes Hamlet to have been intensely pre-occupied with this
subject, to the exclusion of that duty of revenging his murdered
father, as to which he had sworn that it alone should live within
the book and volume of his brain unmixed with baser matter. Now
let us look at the lines to test this view of them. "We may dismiss,
as above, the two first and two last lines on Mr Seeley's own theory.
The next eight,1 from ' Purpose is but the slave to memory/ describe
feebleness and vacillation of purpose. What men propose to them
selves under the influence of passion they forget when the passion is
over, and do not execute. Where in Hamlet's mother do we find this
feeble vacillation? Morally weak she certainly was, but not, I
think, one of the cowards of conscience. Having allowed her love
to be won by her husband's brother during her husband's life-time,
she suppresses any outward sign of the agonies of conscience, and
continues quietly with her betrayed but unsuspecting lord until his
sudden death (she is not privy to the murder), and then, within a
month of the funeral, without any vacillation at all, gives her hand
to her paramour. And just as no outward sign of flattering or
remorse on her part awakened suspicion in her first husband, so
now to all appearance she was prepared to lead a serene respectable
dignified life, had it not been for the moodiness and melancholy of
Hamlet. An easily led woman she appears to me, not introspective,
not given to searchings of conscience ; the very reverse of her son,
whom the description so well fits.

1 Purpose is but the slave to memory ;
Of violent birth, but poor validity ;
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree ;
But fall unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt :
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.

XII. 3. WHICH ARE HAMLEl's 'DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES "? 483

The next four1 lines, < The violence of either grief or joy,' etc.,
describe satirically ho\v easily men pass from joy to grief, or from
grief to joy, 011 slender accident. They deal, we should remember,
with joy and grief really felt, although shallow, not with feigned
feeling. The application is to the Player-Queen, whose future the
dumb show has sketched for us. It does not at all fit the case of
Hamlet's mother, whose grief at the death of his father could not, as
Hamlet now well knew, have been violent; she may have followed his
body like Niobe, all tears, but her sorrow was feigned, her thoughts
upon the new marriage. Had Hamlet wished to launch a dart at her,
he would have satirized the vice of hypocrisy, not the quick change
from violent grief to joy. The 10 2 succeeding lines, beginning,

This world is not for aye ; nor 'tis not strange

That even our loves should with our fortunes change,

deal with changes of love, and the subject at first seems appropriate
to the Queen. But the method of treatment is pointedly not so.
Again, it suits the Player-Queen, not the real queen. The burden is,
that love follows fortune. This hits off the lady, who having loved
and lost one royal husband, is ready at short notice to take another.
It does not touch what was rankling in Hamlet's mind-— his mother's
gross infidelity to her lord and king. Her falling off, her declining
from her first gracious husband upon the wretch whose natural gifts
were poor, is altogether a mystery, a terrible story; but at least her
love had neither been lead nor mislead by fortune. The remaining
four lines,

1 The violence of either grief or joy

Their own enactures with themselves destroy ;
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament,
Grief joys, Joy grieves, on slender accident.

2 This world is not for aye ; nor 'tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change,
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,

Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark, his favourite flies ;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend ;
For who not needs shall never lack a friend ;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try
Directly seasons him his enemy.

484 In. 3. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S 'DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES'?

But orderly to end where I begun, —

Our wills and fates do so contrary run,

That our devices still are overthrown ;

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own,

remind one of Hamlet himself, as I have said before, but do not
apply to the Queen at alL

I find, then, nothing in all this passage to catch the conscience of
the Queen, nothing with any special reference to her, and accordingly
she is perfectly unmoved by it. When Hamlet, shortly after (but
not immediately after) the Player-King's speech, asks the question,
which Mr Seeley remarks upon, ' Madam, how like you this play 1 '
the Queen entirely ignores the speech which Mr Seeley believes was
inserted to affect her, but refers to what the Player-Queen has just
pointedly said against second marriages, and with admirable self-pos
session answers simply, ' Methinks the lady doth protest too much.'

I am persuaded that if Hamlet, as Mr Seeley imagines, wrote his
verses with the Queen in his mind, he Would not have made them,
when regarded with reference to her, so pointless and beside the
mark.

The success of these lines at least Was not such as to win Hamlet
a fellowship in a cry of players, a point in my first paper which Mr
Seeley lets go by, as he does also the intimation from Hamlet him
self that his lines contained the torrent tempest and whirlwind of
passion*

But it is indeed remarkable how little the Queen is affected by
the play; she is indeed thrown into a 'most great affliction of spirit,'
and desires at once to see Hamlet in her closet, but it is entirely upon
her husband's account ; she is troubled because Hamlet has so much
offended him, and is prepared to scold him well, to ' tax him home,'
for having done so. Then indeed Hamlet does arouse her conscience,
and turns her eyes into her very soul, effecting at once easily
directly and completely in this scene the very purpose that Mr
Seeley supposes him to have ineffectually attempted just before by
the round-about method of the play.

Mr Seeley, who at the commencement of his paper rather wishes
to put on one side conjectural interpretations of Hamlet's character,
nevertheless, towards its close, supports his choice of the passage we

xii. :{. WHICH ABE HAMLET'S ' DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ' 1 485

aro disputing about by the striking theory that the experiment of
the play is a mere blind by which Hamlet hides from himself and
Horatio that he does not intend to act at all, but will go on as he has
begun, 'brooding interminably upon the frailty of his mother, the
probable frailty of Ophelia, and the worthlessness of all women.'

In these last words a part seems to me substituted for the
whole ; deeply as Hamlet felt about his mother and Ophelia, he ia
much more than an injured son and a love-sick Romeo, in doubt of
the fidelity of his Juliet, put together. His philosophical, speculative
spirit would have survived both shocks, had not there weighed upon
him that too heavy duty — and yet to his mind that religious duty —
of revenge upon his uncle for the murder of his father. A honible
work for his tender, thoughtful, dreaming nature.

He was one troubled with thoughts that lie beyond the reaches of
our souls, so accustomed to detach himself from his surroundings,
that he could be bounded in a nutshell and count himself king of
infinite space. He has an inward life of keen observation and subtle
thought, apart from the life of loves, hates, fears, changes, duties,
which he lives with others. He moves through the play, to my mind,
like a being of a different world, tied indeed to that of his fellows
by many links, — the most delightful of which had become the most
painful, — but sympathizing with and trusting no one but Horatio,
who belonged also to his other world of subtle, wide-reaching
speculation.

Passage after passage — I need not quote — will occur to the student
of Hamlet, in which he pauses even in the most exciting moments
to generalize, to moralize, or even to note an observation. Coleridge
says, " Hamlet's character is the prevalence of the abstracting and
generalizing habit over the practical. He does not want courage,
skill, will, or opportunity ; but every incident sets him thinking ;
and it is curious, and at the same time strictly natural, that Hamlet,
who all the play seems reason itself, should be impelled at last by
mere accident to effect his object." Coleridge adds, " I have a smack
of Hamlet myself, if I may say so."

I have but little more to add. Mr SeeL-y asks me to point out
where I find that Hamlet's lines were to refer to the King's guilt. In

486 xif. 3. wiiica A&E HAMLET'S 'DOZEN ok SIXTEEN

addition to the reasons already given, I may add this — that it is at
the very moment when he has just commanded the play, in order, as
every one admits, to catch the King, that he also proposes to add his
lines; and why should we Cast about for another purpose1? Mr
Seeley says that the play Was already sufficiently pointed. So be it ;
but in Hamlet's state of excitement there would be nothing Unnatural
in his wishing to make assurance doubly sure.

The question whether* his father's murder or his mother's mis-
Conduct is uppermost in Hamlet's mind I need not now enter upon ;
as I have endeavoured to show that the lines Mr Seeley contends
for refer as little to the latter as to the former ; but it is going some
what far to say that ' before Hamlet even suspected his uncles guilt, (!)
before the appearance of the ghost, he is shown to us So much de
pressed as to think of suicide on account of his mother's levity.' He
is certainly also shown to Us as weighed down by his father's death,
hs grief do^s not 'saem', it 'is'; the very form of his father is
Vividly present to his mind's eye when speaking with Horatio,
before lia has heard of the apparition of the ' Spirit in arms.' Then
his previously latent suspicions take form at once, lie doubts ' some
foul play,' and when the ghost is beginning the fearful revelation,
Hamlet breaks in upon it with —

0 my prophetic soul ! mine uncle t

Tii ere is no doubt, however, that Mr Seeley is right when he says
that his lh;es suit Hamlet's character better than any others in the
sub^play. I go further, and say they describe Hamlet's character.
Howj then, do they come there 1 Hamlet had no object to attain by
describing himself, but Shakspere had in describing Hamlet, and
throughout the play he seems to seize every occasion to throw a
needed light upon hie enigmatical character. If, then, the sub-play
ever really existed independently, ' extant ' as Hamlet assures us it
was, and ' writ in choice Italian,' Shakspere may have added this
pass ige to elucidate the meaning of the larger play ; or if it was all
S iakfpere's, written in imitation of such brief performances, he may
have i .troduced the lines for the same purpose.

XII. 4. WHICH ARE HAMLEl's ' DOZEN OB SIXTEEN LINES "? 487

However, this difficulty comes not near my conscience, it does
not touch, my argument. I have not to defend all or any of the queer
little play, so wordy and yet so brief, with its short speeches and
quick action. I need only say, if any one

like not the comedy,

Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.

Yours faithfully,

W. T* MALLESON.

IV. PEOF. SEELEY'S FINAL REMAEKS.

I MUST add one or two words before the controversy is closed.

First, I hope Shaksperian students will not forget what Mr
Malleson has pointed out in his first paper ; namely, that Shakspere
did not mean us to think of Hamlet's intention to insert a dozen or
sixteen lines as a mere passing fancy, that it is this inserted speech
which Hamlet has in view when he gives his celebrated instruction
to the players, and that therefore, unless something strange has
happened to the play, the insertion clearly ought to be discoverable.

Unless, then, we suppose an alteration of the play to have taken
place in which the insertion has disappeared, while all that leads us
to expect the insertion has by some unaccountable negligence been
allowed to stand, We have to choose between my view and Mr
Mallesoii's, for I do not think any third can be suggested.

I have urged against Mr Malleson's View that the speech he
chooses cannot be removed Without affecting the action of the play,
• and therefore has not the character of an insertion. Mr Malleson
now answers that Hamlet " may have inserted his lines in substitu
tion for others winch he struck out ; " but I submit that this is an
unnatural interpretation of the words, and that, at least, a passage
plainly removable answers Hamlet's description much better than
one which is not.

It may "be Urged— Mr Malleson seems half-inclined to urge it —
that I am bound to mark exactly the beginning and end of the
passage which I consider to be the insertion. As I have said, there

488 XII. 4. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S ' DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ' ?

is no difficulty in omitting a good long passage from the middle of
the player-king's speech, and this is actually done now at the
Lyceum ; for, I take it, the length of that speech will always seem
intolerable to actors who do not see the importance of it; but I
admit that the omission might be made in two or three different
ways, and that I do not profess to know for certain which is the
true way. I hardly think that Shakspere knew himself. When he
came to compose the speech I imagine he said to himself : * it must
commence with a general text, which is to be considered as be
longing to the original play, " what we do determine oft we break ; "
then must follow Hamlet's sermon upon it.' But, as Shakspere was
in reality author of both text and sermon, he wove them together so
much, that, though I think he left it quite clear that Hamlet's copy
of verses is here, yet he did not make it possible to say with abso
lute certainty where it begins. I believe that any one who tried
in this way to write a poetical speech, with a modi-insertion in it
would be almost sure to make the join not quite distinct enough.

Mr Malleson accuses me of letting go by his observation that
Hamlet declares that the success of his lines might "win him a fellow
ship in a cry of players." But it is a mere guess of Mr Malleson's
that Hamlet is speaking of the success of his inserted lines and not
of that of the play in general. If a player were the same thing as a
dramatic writer I should think the guess plausible. A player might,
no doubt, as in Shakspere's own case, write verses, but it was not as
a player that he did so. Hamlet considers his success to be that of
a player, not that of a poet. I cannot see, then, that in this passage
there is any reference whatever to the inserted lines. Hamlet boasts
that he has selected a play so happily, and brought it out with such,
success, as to show a genius for the business of a manager.

Again, Mr Malleson accuses me of leaving unanswered his ob
servation that, according to the instructions to the players these lines
" contained the torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of passion," whereas
the lines I point to are riot passionate, but meditative.

I quite admit that Hamlet's instructions suggest a speech that is
in some sense passionate, but any one who reads those instructions
will see that Hamlet is taking the occasion of a particular speech to

XII. 4. WHICH ARE HAMLEl's 'DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES*? 489

give a general lecture on the art of elocution. He is speaking
generally of the way in which passion should be expressed, and he
says that, even where it is most intense, there should be a temperance
or smoothness in the rendering of it. This remark is evidently sug
gested by a passionate speech, but it may easily be supposed to go
beyond the speech that suggested it, and to contemplate much higher
degrees of passion than are to be found there. But I believe also that
the generalities about feebleness of purpose which strike Mr Malleson
as not passionate, seemed to Hamlet very much so, and that he would
have wished to hear those lines recited with a kind of despairing
melancholy. For Hamlet's mind runs on generalities of this kind,
and they inspire him. with feelings so strong as to approach madness.
It is the Weltsclimerz of Werther and Faust.

Again, Mr Malleson urges that if Hamlet's object was to catch
the conscience of the queen he certainly does not succeed, for the
queen keeps her self-possession perfectly. This shows me that I have
not succeeded in explaining what my view is. Mr Malleson evi
dently thinks that I wish to maintain that Hamlet's object in the
play is really to catch the conscience of the queen, and only ostensibly
to catch the conscience of the king, Not at all. I hold that his
object is just what he professes that it is, and that when he triumphs
so loudly and boasts of deserving a fellowship in a cry of players, it
is because he has succeeded in this object, that is, has caught the
conscience of the king. But for this purpose no insertion was
needed ; the play itself did its own work The notion that the play
required to be altered to make it suit the circumstances more exactly
is not supported by anything in Shakspere. Prosaically, no doubt,
it is true; that is, it is not likely that a play could be found so
minutely corresponding to the facts of the king's murder ; but what
was the use of calling attention to a mere difficulty of detail, which
the reader could safely be left to overcome in his imagination as he
pleased 1 My view, then, is that the insertion has a different object,
and is introduced to tell us something about Hamlet that we should
not have known so well otherwise. Is this object, then, to catch the
conscience of the queen ? Not exactly ; I should not express it so ;
I do not imagine that Hamlet was disappointed when he saw that

490 XII. 4. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S 'DOZEN OB SIXTEEN LINES '*?

the queen remained undisturbed. But we have seen Hamlet from
the beginning of the play brooding over his mother's conduct. A
quantity of reflection on the subject of inconstancy, feebleness of
purpose, &c., has been accumulating in his mind. He is a person of
a literary turn, given to reading, to writing verses, to thinking about
the drama. I imagine, then, that When he has hit upon the happy
compromise between his public duty and his private taste which the
play offers, he thinks with great delight of the opportunity it
affords him of relieving himself of the Weight of feeling that has
been oppressing him so long by putting it into verse. He will write
a poem on his mother, and insert it in the play. It may not produce
much effect on her when she he"ars it ; indeed, he probably knows
too well already how unimpressionable she is ; but his object will
be gained if he only Writes it, for it will be a relief to his feelings.
And if Hamlet's object Will be gained, still more will Shakspere's.
For he will have at the same time thrown new light on the dreamy,
unpractical character of Hamlet) and made us aware of the private
train of thought which Hamlet is pursuing all the while that he
professes to be intent upon detecting his uncle's guilt.

But Mr Malleson says the speech I point to is not a description
of Hamlet's mother, but of himself. He says, " The eight lines from
1 Purpose is but the slave to memory' describe feebleness and
vacillation of purpose. What men propose to themselves under the
influence of passion they forget when the passion is over, and do not
execute. Where in Hamlet's mother do we find this feeble vacil
lation 1 " We find it surely in the fact that, having loved Hamlet's
father, she allowed her affections to be drawn away by the con
temptible uncle. Read Hamlet's first soliloquy. It all turns on
the incredible levity and fickleness of his mother. Mr Malleson's
point seems to be, that the revelation of the ghost must have changed
his view, for the ghost seems to say that the queen had been un
faithful to her husband in his lifetime, so that Hamlet ought now
to charge her, not with mere vacillation, but with actual sin and
breach of marriage faith. But this does not affect the fact that she
had displayed ' feeble vacillation ; ' only it shows that the vacillation
had appeared earlier than Hamlet knew, and had gone further. He

XII. 4. WHICH ABE HAMLET'S 'DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES'? 491

might dwell upon her feebleness or her sin, as either might happen
to strike him most forcibly, for in her conduct there was both. But
as a matter of fact he is most struck by her feebleness, and this even
after the ghost's revelations, We see this from the language he
holds in his interview with his mother. So little does he say to his
mother about actual sin or breach of faith, that one might read that
whole Scene, as, in fact, I for a long time did, without discovering,
what I now think is clear from the language of the ghost, that she
had done anything worse than take up with a contemptible husband
after having lost a noble one. It is true, Hamlet begins by charging
her with being guilty of a monstrous crime, but when he comss to
say what it is, we find not a word about breach of faith, violation of
the marriage vow ; he simply presses upon her the revolting contrast
between her two husbands, and asks how she could have eyes to
tolerate her second after her first, Now, it is evident that from the
purely moral point of view Jhe comparative merits of the two men
do not concern the matter, and yet Hamlet's language is such as
almost to imply that if they had presented themselves to her in the
reverse order, her conduct would have been as admirable as it was
disgraceful, I point out this to show, that if the speech in the sub-
play is on vacillation, and not on adultery or hypocrisy, it suits all
the better with the tenour of Hamlet's reflections on his mother's
conduct, for it is on vacillation that he harps, both in his first
soliloquy and also in the interview with his mother after he has
learnt all that the ghost has to tell.

In Mr Malleson's assertion that the lines describe Hamlet's own
character, there is no doubt a grain of truth, Hamlet cannot de
scribe a vacillating character without in some degree describing
his own ; and it is quite in his vein of moralizing to say, "We
are all such weaklings and I am one myself ! " But in the
first instance the speech refers to Hamlet's mother, not to Hamlet
himself, for it refers to a wife tempted to marry again, and Hamlet
was not such a person,

I think I have now answered all Mr Malleson's objections. I
only wish to add, that whatever may be the truth about the " dozen
or sixteen lines," I am strongly of opinion thai critics have not

492 XII. 4. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S ' DOZEN OB SIXTEEN LINES ' ]

sufficiently understood the true nature of the retarding influence in
the play of Hamlet. Hamlet is made irresolute, not merely by his
natural character, but by the intense pro-occupation of his mind by
the subject of his mother. He himself excuses his delay by passion —
" Who lapsed in time and passion, lets go by The important acting of
your dread command." Critics, it seems to me, have not understood
the full importance of the lines of the Ghost at the beginning of the

play :—

" But howsoever thou pursu'st this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught."

The early critics noticed the nobleness of the passage ; but to see
the importance of it, we must compare it with what happens at
Hamlet's interview with his mother. There the Ghost appears again.
What can be the meaning of such a startling incident 1 He says,
" The visitation is but to whet thine almost blunted purpose." But
the reason evidently is, because Hamlet is forgetting the former
admonition. His rage against his mother is passing all bounds. And
to make this plainer, Shakspere has carefully contrasted it with his
behaviour towards the uncle. Two scenes are put side by side. In
the first Hamlet overhears his uncle's soliloquy ; in the second he
talks to his mother. In the first his irresolution overpowers him.
He loses his opportunity through a scruple which would be utterly
monstrous if it were not evidently artificial. In the second he rises
to a height of passion which we should not have thought belonged
to his nature, and actually startles the dead king from his grave to
watch over the wife he still remembers with tenderness.

Between these two appearances of the Ghost, Shakspere's con
trivance to show us the pre-occupation of Hamlet's mind with his
mother, is the story of his behaviour to Ophelia. I agree with Mr
Malleson in the explanation he gives of the coarseness of Hamlet's
language to her. But the same explanation applies, not to that
scene only, but to all the scenes between Hamlet and Ophelia.
Hamlet has generalized in his fashion from the conduct of his mother
to that of all women, and so casts Ophelia off. But more is wanted ;
in fact, when we consider how little all this has actually been under
stood, we see that much more was wanted.

XII. 4. WHICH ABE HAMLET'S 'DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES'? 403

The contrivance, then, of " the dozen or sixteen lines " was not
superfluous. In the lively satire of the conversation with the
players and in the tumult of the play-scene there was danger
that we should forget what Hamlet's mind is really brooding
over. This danger could only be avoided by giving additional
importance to that part of the sub-play which concerned the queen.
This is done by the insertion. That that insertion should refer to
the queen, and not the king, seems, I know, to most persons prima
fade improbable, but I believe that if they will begin by weighing
what I have urged as to the real nature of the retarding influence in
this play they will see that the prima fade probability is in favour
of it.

MR FURNIVALL : — It seems to me that technically Professor
Seeley's position is very strong ; but that ' on the merits ' he breaks
down : he has a capital case at Law, but none in Equity. After he
first put the inserted-speech point to me, in the course of a long after
noon's walk in the country, I was able to pick out the lines in the
Player-King's Speech, not because they had much to do with the
Queen or King, but because theydescribd — as Prof. Seeley told me they
did — the character of Hamlet. On further consideration, I cannot
resist Mr Malleson's argument that Hamlet's inserted speech is the one
speech in which he tells Horatio the King's occulted guilt is to unken
nel itself. To me, at any rate, fair criticism requires the identification of
the two. But I hold very strongly that Lucianus's speech, " Thoughts
black," &c., is not this speech; and that, in fact, the speech is not in
the printed play. Either the King's conscience was more quickly
stung than Hamlet anticipated, — that is, than Shakspere meant it to
be before he got to the scene, — and so the written speech was never
needed ; or, (as Mr Matthew has suggested) Shakspere contented him
self with showing us (or letting us assume) that Hamlet alterd the
Play, and put his " dozen or sixteen lines " into action instead of
words. Hamlet at first resolvd to " have these players play some
thing lilce the murder of my father before mine uncle." Then he
made them play a play exactly like the murder ; and took credit to
himself for the whole affair : " would not this get me a fellowship in
a cry of players 1 " If he hadn't modified the play, if it had been all
— like its story — really extant in choice Italian, what credit could
Shakspere have claimd for himself as a play-writer or adapter 1

The inconsistency of Shakspere's having made Hamlet first talk
so much about inserting one speech, and then having afterwards left
it out, doesn't trouble me in the least. It's just what one might fairly

494 XII. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S 'DOZEN OE SIXTEEN LINES'?

expect in the recast Hamlet, after its really startling inconsistencies
in far more important matters, 1. as to Hamlet's age, and 2. as to
Ophelia's suicide. We know how early, in olden time, young men of
rank were put to arms ; how early, if they went to a University, they
left it, for training in Camp and Court. Hamlet, at a University,
could hardly have passt 20 ; and with this age, the plain mention of
his " youth of primy nature " (I. iii. 7), and " nature crescent, . . not
. . alone in thews and bulk" (I. iii. 11-12), '« Lord Hamlet . . he is
young" (I. iii. 123-4), &c., by Polonius and Laertes, agrees.

With this, too, agrees the King's reproach to Hamlet for his
" intent in going back to school at Wittemberg ; " and Hamlet's own
revolt-of-nature at his mother's quick re-marriage to his uncle. Had
he been much past 21, and had more experience of then women, he'd
have taken his mother's changeableness more coolly, I look on it as
certain, that when Shakspere began the play he conceivd Hamlet as
quite a young man. But as the play grew, as greater weight of reflec
tion, of insight into character, of knowledge of life, &c., were wanted,
Shakspere necessarily and naturally made Hamlet a formd man ;
and, by the time" that he got to the Gravediggers' scene, told us the
Prince was 30 — the right age for him then : but not his age to
Laertes and Polonius when they warnd Ophelia against his blood
that burnd, his youthful fancy for her — ' a toy in blood ' — &c. The
two parts of the play are inconsistent on this main point in Hamlet's
state. What matter1? Who wants 'em made consistent by the
modification of either part 1 The * thirty ' is not in the first Quarto :
yet no one wants to go back to that.

2. As Mason notic't with regard to Ophelia's death, " there is not
a single circumstance in the relation [by the Queen] of Ophelia's
death, that induces us to think she had drowned herself intentionally "
(Variorum, vii. 460) ; on the contrary, we are expressly told that the
branch (sliver) broke, and she fell in. Yet directly afterwards (V. i.)
we are told that she sought her death ' wilfully ', " did with desperate"
hand fordo [her] own life " ; the priest declares her death was doubt
ful, buries her with maimed rites only by the express command of the
King, and says that, but for this command, she'd have been buried in
ground unsanctified (in ' the open fieldes ', Qi). After inconsistencies
like these — and there may be others in the play — what can it matter
whether an actual speech of a dozen or sixteen lines, though often
amiounct, is really in the play or not1? The comparative insignifi
cance of the point is shown by no one having noted it in print before
Mr and Mrs Cowden Clarke. l But while I say * comparative insigni
ficance,' I only use this phrase to lessen any wonderer's surprise at my
conclusion that Shakspere should have left the speech out, or turnd his
propos'd insertion into a more important adaptation of the play. I
do not think Prof. Seeley's bringing the question before us at all

1 Note the funny lucus a non hicendo reason given by these editors for the
insertion of the lines.

xii. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S ' DOZEN on SIXTEEN LINES ' ] 405

insignificant : the point is a capital one, just suited for us. I accept it
thankfully as a reproach for having read Hamlet so carelessly be
fore ; and, as formerly, — when Prof. Seeley identified, for the first
time, Chaucer's Plowman with him of William's Vision, — I gladly
acknowledge the freshness of his view, the keenness and penetration
of his mind, and thank him heartily for raising the question, and Mr
Malleson for showing such good cause against his conclusions.

Mr Eichard Simpson, who could not come to our Meeting, has
sent me the following letter : —

MY DEAR FURNIVALL,

I think that there is no warrant for assuming that the
lines announced by Hamlet are to be supposed to exist in the sub-
play at all. The whole subject of these sub-plays should be
examined into. It is clear that the necessity for abbreviation will
not allow them to contain all the elements of a play, any more than
an historical drama can contain all the events of a reign. And as
the historical drama takes for granted those events which are made
known by previous allusions, so the sub-play generally omits all
those details which have been previously described or alluded to.
Let me refer to two dramas where sub-plays are introduced after
previous preparation. In the Midsummer Nighfs Dream we have
not only the play as presented before Theseus, but a previous re
hearsal of it in Act iii. sc. 1. The lines there rehearsed are totally
different from any that come in the play ultimately acted. Again, in
the Histriomastix, the play of the Prodigal Son, acted in the late
portion of the drama, is preceded by the poet's reading it over to the
actors in an earlier scene. Not a passage in these two presentations
of the same piece agrees. The announcement and expectations raised
by the first recital are not fulfilled in the event.

Again, when a play, imagined to be some thousand lines long, is
compressed into about 70, a speech of a dozen or sixteen lines in it
shrinks, by proportion, into about five words.

Looking both at the practice of the Elizabethan dramatists, and
at the previous likelihoods of the case, I see no reason whatever for
expecting to find that Shakspere would have put into the sub-play
the dozen lines which he makes Hamlet promise. At the end Hamlet
exults over his success as if the whole play had been his own adapt
ation. I don't believe that the poet ever meant us to pick out a bit,
and say, This is the plum contributed by Hamlet himself.

R. SIMPSON.

DR BRINSLEY NICHOLSON : My spoken remarks are here put forth
in somewhat better shape, both because each theorist has since
insisted very strongly on his own peculiar views, and because I did
not ex improvise* bring out as I had wished what I take to be the
intent and significance of the advice-to-the-players-specch.

TRANSACTIONS. 32

496 xn. WHICH ARJB HAMLET'S ' DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES"?

Both theories appear to take it for granted that the sub-play is a
real play and not Shakspere's. The ring-poesie prologue, the short
speeches, the absence of any second plot, and of any but the main
actors of the main plot, the directness with which the plot is opened,
and the occurrence of the chief catastrophe within a few minutes
from the drawing of the curtain, all show that the play is the abridge
ment of an abridgement manufactured for the occasion. That it is
Shakspere's is also shown by every speech in it, and his art is dis
tinctly manifested in the way in which in so little space he has con
trived in Gonzago's speech to open out to us Hamlet's thoughts and
character, and state in brief that moral of the main play which
Hamlet's character is meant to set forth.

" Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own "
is merely a variant of Hamlet's own phrase,

" There's a divinity that shapes our ends ",

and both express one of the main ideas of the play. If the sub-play
be stilted and artificial, it is so made on the principle that leads a
painter to paint a picture within a picture rudely and artificially,
namely, that his own presentment may appear more true and life-like.

But, it is said, Hamlet is represented as writing a speech for the
set purpose of more surely catching the conscience of the king. True,
and sufficient artistic reasons can be given for this. First, if it were
not necessary that Hamlet should rush into actipn, yet any one in
his position would for naturalness' sake be represented as trying to
make assurance doubly sure. Secondly, in the feverish activity into
which Hamlet is roused, it is a necessity that be should do somewhat.
Were he not, this, looked at by his character elsewhere, would have
been a grievous flaw in Shakspere's delineation of him, and this side
or indirect, and literary and, as it were, meditative action is that most
in keeping. Thirdly, as it tended to destroy the audience' belief in
the Hamlet story, that there should be a play so exactly similar in
plot, and manner and place and rewards of poisoning ; — as the Gonzago,
play would tend to mar the reality of the Hamlet play, and the Hamlet
play would give rise to the belief that the Gonzago play was evolved
to order — the double result of coincidence was avoided by making
Hamlet appear as an adapter. This, it will be observed, does not trench
or in any way depend on the question whether any tragedy of ' The
Murder of Gonzago' really existed. That there was such a tragedy is
a perfectly gratuitous assumption ; but if there were, then Hamlet's
expressed intent would bring out more forcibly the difference between
the real tragedy and — not Hamlet's — but Shakspere's subrplay adapt
ation. That the audience knew Kyd's Soliman and Perseda only
makes Hieronimo's use of the story as a sub-play and bringer about
of the catastrophe in Kyd's Spanish Tragedy the more natural.

Again, it will be said, admitting these artistic reasons, there still
remains the fact that Hamlet is represented as writing. But the artistic

xn. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S 'DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES"? 407

reasons being allowed, what reason is there for Hamlet's writing
when Shakspere had the whole intent of the sub-play in his mind's
eye, and the whole making of it in his own hands ? Admit the play
to be Shakspere's, and admit the reasons for his manner of introduc
ing the play, and the whole raison d'etre of Hamlet's intent appears,
and the whole raiaon d'etre for there being any such speech disappears.
And here comes in fitly and with force Mr E. Simpson's acute remark
that the description of these sub-plays never answers to their per
formance. Not a word spoken in the rehearsal scene in Histrio-
mastix is spoken in the acted play, neither is there a word of Bottom
and Co.'s rehearsal spoken in the Pyramus and Thisbe presented beT
fore Theseus and his bride.

Lastly, it may be said, that in proof of the existence of a Ham
let speech it is again pointedly referred to in Hamlet's advice to the
players. This is true, and I am content that the question be decided
by this advice. Where in the sub-play is the clown, so animadverted
on by Hamlet1? Or if it be said, this latter part of the advice is a
digression into which, as usual, his subject carries him, I ask
where, after the very first words — " Speak the speech, I pray you, trip
pingly on the tongue," where is the town-crier speech, where the
speech requiring " a sawing of the air thus " — where the very torrent,
tempest, and whirlwind of passion — where the robustious periwig-
pated fellow tearing his passion to tatters — where the o'erdoing Ter
magant and out - heroding Herod1? The very speech relied on
declares in its opening words, as well as in its closing ones, that it
cannot refer to any speech in the sub-play.

Why then was it introduced ? Not simply to keep up the vrai-
semblance of the whole contrivance. This was a secondary aim ; but
its true raison d'etre is, that Shakspere had something to say on plays
and play-acting which he would not leave unsaid, and took or made
this opportunity of saying it. Just as Hamlet represents a phase in
Shakspere's life and character more individually than any other of
his characters, so nowhere — unless where he refers to the luces, —
does he, so to speak, break forth as in Hamlet. Thus we have the
outbreak on the tragedians of the city and cry of children. For
myself, I have little doubt that there is a reference or references to
Jonson, to whom in 1601 or -2, he had administered a famous dose.
And none can read the diatribe against clowns in the first Quarto,
without perceiving that Shakspere is speaking with personal anger
and bitterness against some particular actor, Kemp, or some other.
Very possibly also there are in the rest of the advice special hits
which were to his then audience palpable enough. But there is more,
and as I take it, a rising above these squabbles, and whether Shak
spere followed the changing taste of the day, or went against it, or
led it, I hold this speech to be his definite protest against the un-
naturalness and stilt and rant of the Tamburlaine style of plays where
Marlow was imitated, — but not his poetry, — and against the artificiality

498 xn. WHICH ARE HAMLET'S < DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ' ?

and rant of the actors who played in them* Hamlet is the first of
Shakspere's greatest dramas, and he then, so to express it, found him
self, and this speech is the outcome of some of his maturing thoughts.
In it are the suggesting thoughts that led him to give up the more
poetic and fanciful treatment of his subjects observable in the Mid
summer Night's Dream, and Rome'o and Juliet, and What Mr Hales
well calls the rhetorical style of Henry V. (and Julius Ccesar), toge
ther with the more heroic-ryme-like verse suited to these styles, in order
to make his mirrors to nature not only more like flesh and blood, but
think and speak more like those on the stage of the world. In one
word, this speech is Shakspere's own indication of his aims in the
future manipulation of his thoughts and mode of expressing them.1

DISCUSSION ON
MR FLBAY'S MACBETH AND JULIUS CAESAR PAPER,

June 26, 1874.
(See pages 339—366 above.)

MR FURNIVALL : — [The attack on the Porter-scene to which I
here reply has been withdrawn, but I still print my answer, most of
which was set and circulated with the attack. When attacks on the
genuineness of Shakspere's text are made rashly, it is Well to note
their failure as a warning for the future. — F. J. F.]

Mr Hales's Paper on ' the Porter in Macbeth ' made a happy ex
ception to the usual course of events here. Its points were stated with
such moderation, and supported with such care, that no voice was
raisd at our Meeting against any of them. Since the reading of the
Paper, its conclusions have been accepted by all the first critics in
England to whom I have referrd them : — Mr Tennyson, Mr Robert
Browning, Mr James Spedding, Mr Alexander J. Ellis, Professor Dow-
den, Dr George MacDonald, Professor Henry Morley, — in fact, every
man whose opinion I have askt on the subject. "We had also here (you
will remember) Mr Tom Taylor with his great practical knowledge
of the Drama, who confirmd Mr Hales's views. An attempt to set
the whole of this aside has, however, been now made by a writer
who has assurd the world that all this Porter-scene is merely scur-
rile rubbish.

1 I have since come across the following : — " The play, acted by the players
before the King, is at first in a bad and antiquated style. I thought it might
be really taken from an old play ; but it is impossible he could have lit upon
a composition which [so ?] suited his purpose ; and in the last speech but one
there is a resemblance to Shakespeare's fancies, about grief, love, etc., and else
where to his words ; and great neatness and care in the composition. It is all
in rhyme. I do not see symptoms of the lines which Hamlet was to insert." —
C. Bathursfs Remarks on Shakespeare's Versification, 1857, p. 70.

DISCUSSION. JUNE 26, 1874. 499

In support of this notion of his, he has put forth certain state
ments, which we must test.

1 . Of the change from verse to prose, and back again from prose
to verse, in the Macduff-and-Porter conversation in Macbeth, II. iii.
24-46, the writer says : Either Macduff would have spoken verse
throughout the scene, or prose as far as line 46. Of this he is
certain. He has specially studied the use of verse and prose by
Shakspere in these rnixt scenes. And he says with confidence such an
arrangement as the present does not occur in any of his works.

Opening Measure for Measure, I find that in V. i, 183 — 199, the
Duke speaks first verse, then prose, and then verse again, both to
Mariana and Lucio :— two instances in 36 lines of this never-used
arrangement !

Opening I^ear, I find in II. ii., Kent speaking to Cornwall, first
prose, then verse, and then again prose.

Opening Love's Labour's Lost, I also find at once in Act
III. sc. i. 1. 71, &c., a conversation opening with verse, changing to
prose, and then back again to verse : —

" Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD.
" Moth. A wonder, master ! here's a costard broken in a shin.

Arm. Some enigma, some riddle : come, thy 1'envoy ; begin.

Cost. ]STo egma, no riddle, no 1'envoy ; no salve f in the mail,
sir : 0 sir, plantain, a plain plantain ! no 1'envoy, no 1'envoy ; no salve,
sir, but a plantain !

Arm. By virtue, thou enforcest laughter ; thy silly thought my
spleen ; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous smiling.
0, pardon me, my stars ! Doth the inconsiderate take salve for
1'envoy, and the word 1'envoy for a salve ?

Moth. Do the wise think them other 1 is not 1'envoy a salve 1

Arm. No, page : it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain
Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain." ....
then Moth prose, Armado verse, Moth verse and prose, Armado
verse, Moth prose, Costard verse ; and so on.

I can give several other instances.

2. The writer also says : " The severely-wounded captain in I. ii.
... is sent by an experienced general as the speediest messenger
of victory he can find."

Mr Daniel has already answerd this, by showing 1. that the ' Ser
geant ' is not sent ; 2. that no victory had been won when he left the
field ; 3. that the man sent with news of the victory was Ross ; 4.
that the wounded Sergeant was only met by Duncan, &c.

3. " Other words which to some of us may sound Shaksperian . .
are really far commoner in Middleton. . . For example, such words
as old (for strange) . . . &c."

Not one parallel passage from Middleton (besides those given by
prior critics as to the witches) is cited by this writer for any of Ids

500 DISCUSSION. JUNE 2(5, 1874.

assertions. If he can produce any, why does he not1? If he has
read Middleton, why does he quote from none of that author's
plays (except The Witch at second hand) 1

On this word old — w,hich of course Mr Hales calld only * not un-
Shaksperian,' — Mr John E. Wise has the following interesting pas
sage in his Sh akspere : his Birthplace and its Neighbourhood, 1861,
p. 106-7 :—

" But there is an expression used both by Shakspere and his contemporaries
which must not be so quickly passed over. Wherever there has been an un
usual disturbance or ado . . . the lower orders round Stratford-on-Avon in
variably characterize it by the phrase, ' there has been old work to-day,' which
well interprets the Porter's allusion in Macbeth (Act III. Scene iii.), ' If a man
were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key,' which is simply
explained in the notes as ' frequent,' but which means far more. So, in the
Merchant of Venice (Act IV. Scene ii.), Portia says, 'We shall have old
swearing,' that is, very hard swearing ; and in the Merry Wives of Windsor
(Act I. Scene iv.), we find, ' Here will be an old abusing of God's patience arid
the king's English'; and in the Second Part of King Henry IV. (Act II.
Scene iv.), ' P.y the mass, here will be old utis.' And so also, in Much Ado
About Nothing (Act V. Scene ii.), Ursula says, 'Madam, you must come to
your uncle ; yonder's old coil at home ' : and to this day, round Stratford, is
this use of ' old ' still kept up by the lower classes."

Here is another instance, which I can only treat as a prac
tical joke.

4. This writer says : " ' Harow out ' . . . being misread by
Middleton * aroynt,' has given rise to the phrase aroint thee." Surely,
this is not meant seriously.

Had not common-sense stopt it, the following note in Clark and
Wright's edition, p. 81, should have done so : " Aroint thee. This
phrase is used again [Note that wise " again," though the Preface
contends that the Macbeth use is not Shakspere's '] by Shakespeare,
King Lear, iii. 4, 129 : ' Aroint thee, witch, aroint thee.' . . Eay . .
gives, * Rynt you witch, quoth Besse Locket to her mother,' Proverb,
Cheshpre]." *

Take one or two more instances — though it is almost a pity to
weaken the foregoing ones :

5. The writer says of ' equivocator,' that it is used here first in
the sense of Jesuit (a meaning utterly foreign to Shakspere's usage,
and an allusion utterly foreign to his universal practice). And "that
the scene is absolutely extraneous."

See what a curious and almost wilful missing of Shakspere's pur
pose in the Porter-scene is here. .A hellish deed has been done, by
an equivocator who is soon to appear and equivocate. A knocking
is heard, which must of course bring-up first a Porter, to open the

1 " In the first 37 lines of the next scene {aroint being in 1. 6] we do not
recognize Shakespeare's hand." Clark and Wright's Preface, p. x.

DISCUSSION. JUNE 20, 1874. 501

gate. This Porter comes, talks of hell-gate, the everlasting bonfire,
the equivocator who is to come, &c., — the very subjects he ought to
talk of to link the past and future of the play together, and in the
very grimly humorous way he ought to talk of these subjects, to
suit and yet to relieve the straind feelings of the audience ; — and yet
he and his talk are " absolutely extraneous " to the play !

6. Again, the writer's statement that "allusions to events passing
in our own time in the 17th century," that is, the date of the play,
are " not Shakspere's method," is contradicted by the fact that Shak-
spere's allusions to events of his time are one of the universally-re-
cogniz'd means of dating his plays. He opens his dramatic work
by satirizing the schemes for Academies in Elizabeth's time, by Loves
Labours Lost, — which also condemns the Elizabethan ladies' habits
of painting their faces and wearing false hair, and ridicules the then
prevalent Euphuism ; — his second play, The Comedy of Errors, men
tions " France fighting against its heir " (Henri IV), the League
against the Huguenots ; Midsummer Nights Dream alludes unmis-
takeably to the Virgin Queen, Elisabeth; The Two Gentlemen of
Verona alludes to the warlike expeditions and discovery of islands
in her reign (p. 320 above) ; Richard II. alludes to and condemns
her " benevolences " — unheard of in Richard's reign — as Mr Simpson
points out ; King John is full of political allusions, as Dr B. Nichol
son will one day prove to us ; Henry V. mentions Essex's expedition
to Ireland in 1599 ; Merry Wives, Windsor stories of the day ;
Much Ado alludes to the Queen's insolent favourites ; and so
on.

7. " Another phrase foreign to Shakspere is at quiet." This and
the ' goose,' &c. beg the question at issue, and moreover involve the
proposition that * all words which occur only once in a play calld
Shakspere's, are either certainly or probably spurious.' If, as in the
case o£ farmer, the word is used thrice besides in genuine plays, it is
still seemingly an argument against the genuineness of the 4th use.
As to ' in quiet ' : as Shakspere uses both ' in rest ' and ' at rest ' ;
there is nothing strange in his using both ' in quiet,' and ' at quiet.'

8. I now turn to Mr Fleay's Paper,1 and ask you to look at the
supposed argument drawn from his Table on p. 354. The no-use
it is really of, may be shown thus : —

* Because the Plays in which we may safely conclude that another
hand than Shakspere's was concernd, range in number of lines from

1 On Mr Fleay's later insertion about bonfire, note that Cooper's Thesaurus,
1 584, has " Py ra . . A bone fier wherein mens bodies weare burned . . .
Erigere pyram, Virgil. To make a bone fier." Rogus is denned only "A
great fier wherein dead bodies are bourned." The 1611 (Shakspere) edition
of Cotgrave has no feu de iole under wye or feu ; but under " Behourdis : in.
A bustling, rombling, iusting of many men together ; also, a blustering of
winds," is " Feu de behourdis. A bone-fire;" like Palsgrave's " Itonnefyre,
feu de behourdis" (A.D. 1530).

502 DISCUSSION. JUNE 26, 187-1.

3032 to 2358,1 while his wholly genuine Plays range from 3964
(Antony and Cleopatra) to 1770 (Comedy of Errors),

' Therefore we may be sure [or safely assume] that Macbeth, which
contains 1993 lines, is largely spurious.'

This is * Fortunately,' one of a set of tests ' of great value ' (p.
353) ; and * given first ' I suppose, as of the greatest value 2 !

To say, or imply, that the late Mr Staunton has ' satisfactorily '
shown that The Tempest was " finished or altered by some other
poet " is surely a mistake. So far as I can find, after careful inquiry,
he never showd any such thing. That Julius Ccesar was thus finisht or
alterd, is to me as wild a notion as that the scene of Launce and
his dog is only an imitation of Shakspere. While as to The Two
Gentlemen, Mr Fleay has himself withdrawn his fancy of a second
hand in it.

I look on the Paper given out to you to-night as an instance of
how far the desire to support the pet theory of the infallibility of
that Ryme-test 3 can pervert the judgment.

The same perversion of judgment, arising from the same cause,
and leading to like results, I see in Mr Fleay's Paper on Julius Ccesar.

First as to statements flatly in the face of facts.

1. " The word press in the sense of ' crowd ' does not occur in
Shakspere." In fact, he uses it twice in the Rape of Lucrece : —

Much like a press of people at a door,

Throng her inventions, which shall go before. 1. 1301.

About him were a press of gaping faces,

Which seem'd to swallow up his sound advice. 1. 1408.

2. " Home = to thy house, chez toi* : never used by Shak-

1 2 Henry VI. 3032

3 Henry VI. 2904

Henry VIII. 2754

Two Noble Kinsmen 2734

Shrew 2671

Titus Andronicus 2525

Pericles 2386

Timon 2358

1 Henry VI. 2693

2 Why should not another black line be drawn under Lear whose differ
ence from 1 Henry IV. is 128 lines, as against 113, the difference between
King John and Julius Ca>sar, and then some theory invented about the en
largement of the first ten Plays in the Table 1 Richard III. would make a
fine bit of soap to blow the bubble with.

3 See Mr Swinburne's opinion in his Preface to Chapman's Minor Poems,
$c., p. 50. The ' clamorous harbingers of blood and death ' (p. 347) is Shak
spere' s, as well as his ' clamorous reports of war ' in Rich. III., IV. iv.

4 This was first printed "to my house, chez moi," and I brought forward
these instances, out of many, of the usage : —

" Ford. I beseech you heartily, some of you go home [= to my house]
with me to dinner." — Merry Wives, III. ii. 81.

" Abbot . . Come home [= to my house] with me to supper."

Ric. II., IV. i. 333.

" I pray you home to dinner with me." — Meas.for Meas.< II. i.
" Sir, I entreat you home with me." — Merchant, IV. i.

DISCUSSION. JUNE 20, 1874. 503

spere." Compare the following, which do not exhaust the list : —

Silvia (to Proteus). You have your wish ; my will is even this :
That presently you hie you home [= to your house] to bed.

Two Gentlemen, IV. ii. 94.

Shallow. Master Doctor Caius, I am come to fetch you home
[= to your house]. — Merry Wives, II. iii. 55.

Go get you home [= to your houses] you fragments. — Coriol., I. i.

Go masters, get you home. — ib.t IV. vi.

You are most welcome home. — ib., V. v. &c.

Voice, (to Roman). You have ended my business, and I will
merrily accompany you home [= to your house]. — Coriolanus, IV.
iii. 40-2.

Who's at home [= your house] besides yourself? — Merry Wives,
IV. ii.

If you think so, then stay at home [— your house], and go not.
ib., II. vii. G2.

Mrs Page. Truly sir, to see your wife. Is she at home [= your
house]. — ib., III. ii. 11.

And so thoroughly is the usage " home = to thy house," Shak-
spere's, that he uses it metaphorically : —

So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again [returns to thee]. — Sonnet 87, 1. 12.
Send for your ring, I will return it home [to you, its owner]. —
Airs Well, V. iii. 223.

Secondly, the spelling Antony is easily accounted for, because the
hero's Latin name Antonius is also given to him in the play (I. i. 56 ;
II. vi. 119 (Marcus Anthonius) ; III. i. 25 — Schmidt), as it is also
in Jonson's Sejanus. (Will this be made another ground for Jonson's
supposed alteration of J. C. ?)

Thirdly. " Shakspere and Jonson worked together on Sejanus in
1602-3." There is no evidence for this beyond Jonson's statement,
in his re-cast play, that

" this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on
the public stage ; wherein a second pen had good share : in place of which, I
have rather chosen to put weaker, and, no doubt, less pleasing, of mine own,
than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation."

Is it likely that a play of which Shakspere, about the best part
of his middle time, wrote " good share," would fail ; and that when
Jonson re-wrote this " good share," the play would succeed 1 [Dr
B. Nicholson has since shown cause to believe that Sheppard was
Jonson's helper, as Sheppard claims that he ' dictated ' to Jonson
when he wrote 8ejanut.\

9. Further, consider the mess this new theory as to Julius Ccesar
puts its adopters into. Mr Fleay's former theory in his last paper
was that Shakspere wrote all his Roman Plays at one time according

504 DISCUSSION. JUNE 26, 1874.

to what he (Mr F.) asserted was Shakspere's habit through life, of
using up a book (like North's Plutarch), and then casting it aside.
Now he asks us to believe that Shakspere wrote Julius Ccesar in
1600-1 (which is no doubt true), and that at the very time he was
engagd on his other Roman Plays, Coriolanus and Antony and Cleo
patra, in 1606-8, he let Ben Jonson alter his Julius Ccesar in 1607.
Is not this too great a demand on our credulity ?

10. Again, as to the "very important argument" from Ben
Jonson's Discoveries, it makes dead against Mr Fleay's theory. For,
as Mr Hales well remarkt to me, if Ben Jonson had really revis'd
Shakspere's Julius Ccesar, he would certainly have told us that he,
the great Ben, had set his friend's " ridiculous " passages all right.
Jonson wasn't the man to hide his light under a busheL

11. It is hardly worth while to point out that if Shakspere
doesn't use ' Chew upon this,' he does its equivalent ' think upon
that ' (Measure for Measure, II. ii.) ; that * degrees ' = rungs of a
ladder, is used in a metaphor ; that the " elements " was used as far
back as Wiclif s Colossians (see Richardson) ; that in the Macbeth
" everlasting bonfire " we haven't a modern gospeller seriously preach
ing about * penal fires of torment,' but a Jacobite half-drunken
porter humourously describing them, &c. I must add that the 4£ lines
taken up on p. 360 by explaining why the * stilted ' passages are not
printed, would be more usefully employed in giving us references to
these passages. We don't want quotations. As none have been
produc'd in answer to my challenge, I conclude that none can be
produc'd.

12. The only point in the whole Paper of 28 pages which I can
at present accept, is the justification of the Folio reading of ' lane '
in Julius Ccesar, III. i. 39 ; and this is taken without acknowledg
ment from Steevens. See the Variorum of 1821, xii. 75 : —

"If the lane of children be the true reading, it may possibly re
ceive illustration from the following passage in Ben Jonson's ' Staple
of News ' :

A narrow-minded man ! my thoughts do dwell

All in a lane.

" The ' lane of children ' will then mean the narrow conceits of
children, which must change as their minds grow more enlarged," &c.

The Macbeth-pSLit of Mr Fleay's Paper seems to me to be the
carrying out of the practice against which Mr Clark has warnd us :
" It would be very uncritical to pick out of Shakespeare's works all
that seems inferior to the rest, and to assign it to somebody else:"
especially without a careful examination of that somebody else's
works, and full quotation of all his parallel passages. But the num
bering of the tags, and recalling attention to the weak ones, will be
useful.

The Julius Ccesar part of the Paper I think mere vagary.

DISCUSSION. JUNE 26, 1874. 505

MR HALES said : — I sliall have to find fault with Mr Fleay's
paper, and I regret very much Mr Fleay is not here himself to-day,
as we had expected he would have been, to answer, or try to answer,
for himself. With regard to the Julius Ccesar paper, of external
evidence in favour of Mr Fleay's theory there is not one trace, nor
is there a single fragment of definite internal evidence. One remark
as to " Chew upon this," upon p. 360. It is argued that this is
Jonson's phrase, because a phrase something like it occurs in a play
of which Jonson was one of the authors ! Yet there is in Macbeth : —

" O ! I have eaten on the insane root."

I confess I do not think it is worth while spending any more time
on the Julius Ccesar paper.

About Macbeth, I should like to mention two characteristics of
this play which Mr Fleay has scarcely recognized, but which cast a
great deal of light upon what seem at first difficulties. The one is
the astonishing rapidity with which the action of this play proceeds.
Amongst Shakspere's plays Macbeth is unique for the frightful
pace at which the action moves. See what takes place in a
single Act : you are introduced to Macbeth in the midst of his fame,
honour, and integrity ; and before you get to the end of the first Act
you have his moral collapse begun and assured. German critics
have well contrasted this play with the play of Hamlet, where the
action proceeds so slowly — in fact, scarcely proceeds at all, as Dr
Johnson says, and though nothing can be more absurd than to place
all Shakspere's plays in pairs, like Plutarch's lives, or a series of
twins, there are instances where plays do help to illustrate each
other.

The other point about Macbeth is that it is remarkable for its
obscurity of language. Objection has been taken to some phrases for
exaggeration and bombast, but in Macbeth there are passages which
no man could dream of casting out of that play which are certainly
amenable to those charges. Look at the speech of Macbeth, Globe
edition, p. 792, b : —

" Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against
The deep damnation of his taking off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind."

Now you see that passage quite parallels those that have been inju
diciously rejected by Mr Fleay.

506 DISCUSSION. JUNE 26, 1874.

Take another passage of obscurity and affectation, p. 798, Globe
edition, column A ; —

Mad). " So shall I love, and so, I pray, be you :
Let your remembrance apply to Banquo,
Present him eminence both with eye and tongue ;
Unsafe the while that we

Must lave our honours in these flattering streams
And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
Disguising what they are."

If you think about it, you may discover a meaning, but the style is
certainly unclear and difficult.

See another passage at the bottom of p. 799 (Globe ed.), column
A : —

Lady M. " My royal lord

You do not give the cheer ; the feast is sold
That is not often vouched, while 'tis a making
'Tis given with welcome : to feed were best at home."

On p. 800 another passage has given great difficulty. Macbeth
says, after the guests all abruptly disappear, and he has just recovered
his self-possession : —

"What man dare, I dare," &c.
And look a little below ; —

-" Can such things be

And overcome us like a summer's cloud

Without our special wonder 1 You make me strange

Even to the disposition that I owe,

When now I think you can behold such sights,

And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,

When mine is blanched with fear."

I give these rapidly as instances of this obscurity of language.
Many people suppose Shakspere wrote Macbeth under special cir
cumstances. Certainly these obscurities of language, however they
were caused — they cannot be disposed of as merely textual diffi
culties — do really dispose of many objections which have been
advanced.

Now, if I may, I shall state bow far I myself think there may
be something in this play not of Shakspere's, or at least about
which there may be serious doubt. I think the Hecate passages, i. e.
those in which Hecate appears, may reasonably be doubted. Hecate
only appears twice in the play ; the first being in Act III. Sc. v.
(p. *800, Globe ed.), the second, IV. i. What has made people suspect
the presence of Middleton in this play in these two scenes'? In both
these scenes there is singing (III. v. line 34, "Music and a song
within. Come away, come away," &c.). This song ' Come away ' is

DISCUSSION. JUNE 26, 1874. 507

found in Middleton's Witch. Again (p. 801, line 43), when Hecate
appears you have another song, " Black Spirits," &c., and that too is
found in the Witch. Now here, certainly, are reasons for supposing
the speeches introducing the songs are Middleton's. Two other
things are to be considered ; you call remove Hecate entirely from
the play without destroying the action ; and a third thing which I
am surprised Mr Fleay has not noticed. The Witches always speak
in trochaics, and Hecate always in iambics. Act III. Sc. v. p. 800,
is all in iambics — first trimeter^ and then dimeters, &c. Now
turn to the Witches (p. 801) : —

" Fillet of a fenny snake," &c.

All trochaic. Go on to where Hecate comes in — -the metre is changed.
These two appearances of songs found in Middleton, and the separa
bility of Hecate from the play, show surely some reason for his
believing him connected "with these particular passages. How lines
10—12 in III. v. point to Middleton is well suggested by Messrs
Clark and Wright. W^ith regard to Sc. iii. of Act I., where the
Witches appear, I think we may confidently say, that if lines from
18 to 25 are not by Shakspere, there are no lines by Shakspere in
the play. I aiii very glad to say in passing, that Mr Clark ad
vanced what faults he had in a thoughtful and scholarly way, that
strikingly contrasts with the ruthless manner of which we have
to-night an example in Mr Fleay's work.

With regard to ' rhyming tags,' Mr Fleay had better perhaps have
confined his paper to the rhyming tags of Macbeth ; but I must say,
with regard to the test he suggests, I do not agree with him one whit.

The speech of the Doctor, and the conversation between Malcolm
and Macduff, in reference to the touching for the King's Evil, have
long been thought an interpolation ; but the question arises, if it is
not an interpolation by Shakspere himself] Is it not possible he
may himself have inserted this passage for Court performance ] I
should myself shrink from saying the language of the passage is
not Shakspere's. I do not think one would be justified in ex
punging the Scene on such very slight causes of discredit as we
have.

These are the only parts, so far as I have myself formed an
opinion about Macbeth, that I should be strongly, or at all, suspicious
about.

I now ask you to refer to Mr Fleay's paper.

If you remember that Middleton is strongly imbued with Shak
spere, many of Mr Fleay's points are at once disposed of. Middleton
was deeply dipped in Shaksperian influence.

Members should read what the Cambridge editors say. One
might imagine that they go further than they do.

On p. 342 of Mr Fleay's paper you come to the question of the
witches. This by itself might form the subject of a very interesting

508 DISCUSSION. JUNE 26, 1874.

paper — Shakspere's treatment of popular traditions. In this respect,
as in others, this play links itself with Hamlet. Shakspere follows
his authority, does not set himself to correct it ; see the quotation
from Holinshed on p. 342. Holinshed leaves the character of the
witches an open question. To say that Shakspere treats them as
Norns is simply quite gratuitous, as reference to p< 801 (Globe ed.)
will show. These are not the functions of the Norns. Look at the
language in which Shakspere addresses them :—

" How now, you secret, black and midnight hags."

In short, Shakspere does not regard them as the Goddesses of Destiny.
To say, as you are told near the foot of p. 342, that we should reject
the passages that show he does not do so, is not criticism : it is
mere mutilation and mangling.

As to Mr Fleay's remark about " Enter Hecate and the other
three Witches " (the current reading is two), Mr Staunton, whose
name we cannot mention to-night without a word of sincere regret
for the loss Shakspere study experiences by his death, says, "Nothing
is more common in our early dramas than upon the entrance of each
character on a scene for the stage-director to recapitulate the person
ages already there, as if they had entered at the same time with the
last comer."

In spite of his remark on p. 353, the writer of the paper before us
is somewhat reckless of stage-directions when they stand in his way,
as you will see in p. 343.

As regards p. 346, surely this is mere slaughter, not criticism.
As regards the instances on that page and the following, I can only
here, as our time is short, and we cannot discuss everything, express
my complete disagreement with Mr Fleay ; I assent to scarcely one
word in this part of his paper.

In V. iii. the Doctor says : —

"Were I from Dunsinane away and clear
Profit again should hardly draw me here."

It is ludicrous to call the ' sentiment ' ' washy ' (p. 347). It is Shak
spere's way of writing not to neglect the lesser people. A critic of
Mr Fleay's kind might say why should we be troubled with the
idiosyncracy of this murderer 1

P. 348 Mr Fleay attacks, singularly enough, that poor innocent
old man (p. 796, Globe ed.), and proposes to expunge him alto
gether; but with what justification1? Simply none. Shakspere
brings in the old man as the ' oldest inhabitant ' of the newspapers,
to tell us he does not remember any such dreadful convulsions in his
time. Mr Fleay says we have heard quite enough of this in the pre
ceding scene : but Shakspere makes a great deal of these prodigies.
There is a passage which is exactly parallel to this in King
Lear in Act III. Sc. i. p. 861 of Globe ed., where to be sure we
have not an old man, but we have ' a gentleman.' At the en.d of the

DISCUSSIONS, JUNE 26 AND JULY 10, 1874. 509

second Act we are told of the storm to which Lear is exposed.
This gentleman describes it more particularly. Mr Fleay proposes
to strangle the old man (p, 349) ; but the old man is much more
likely, I suspect, to strangle Mi! Fleay — of course I mean Mr
Fleay qua Shakspere critic.

Again, "Duncan's horses." Mr Fleay does not seem to know
that the phrase about Duncan's horses conies straight from Holin-
ehed. It is Holinshed poetized. " Monstrous sightes also that
were seene within the Scottishe Kingdome that yeare were these,
horses in Lothian being of singuler beautie and swiftnesse, did eate
thair own flesh, and would in no wise taste any other meate." Then in
V. ii. (p. 349) one may admit bad taste ; but is one therefore to con
demn the passage as not Shakspere's ?

I am glad to see that a little below Mr Fleay admits that a part
of Troylus and Cressida is by another hand. A little time has suf
ficed to bring him to that conclusion. So late as last March (see the
Academy for March 14, 1874) he denies it, announcing himself a
firm believer in the undivided authorship of the play.

As to the table on p. 351 I need not now say that it does not
seem to me Very Valuable.

Turn now to the middle of page 355. There is no play more
complete in its physiological development than is Macbeth. All com
petent critics concur in this. There is scarcely perhaps elsewhere in
literature a decay of soul represented with such completeness. The
biography is absolute. This is accomplished by a marvellous com
pression and terseness.

I will only say further, that I am very sorry I have found it
possible to be so little in accord with Mr Fleay's paper, and I should
certainly have abstained from pointing out what seem to me its faults,
if it had not been very necessary that as the paper is about to bo
circulated, there should circulate along with it some sort of corrective.

DISCUSSION ON MR K. SIMPSON'S PAPER (JULY 10)

ON THE POLITICAL USE OF THE STAGE IN SHAKSPERE'S TIME,

Page 371.

MR J. W. HALES, M.A. : — I wish to thank Mr Simpson very
much for his most interesting paper. The general point that I my
self should, like to refer to is this : I think that looking at other
periods of literature — looking, for instance, at the great Greek period
— one distinctly sees that with the cruder writers political allusions
abound ; but that when the art is more completely developed, these
political allusions are considerably reduced.

Let us glance at one or two periods. With regard to the Greeks,
it would seem clear that in Greek Tragedy you have the allusionist

510 DISCUSSION. JULY 10, 1874.

period before the great period arises. Phrunichos wrote a play on a
contemporary event — The fall of Miletus; ^schylus is highly allusive
— see the Eumenides and Persai; but when you come to Sophocles you
have fewer allusions. When the artistic taste is developed, a man does
not cease to be a child of his time, nor is his wrork not redolent of the
age in which he grows ; yet specific and special references are re
duced. One might in some sort compare the pre-Sophoclean play
wrights with the predecessors of Shakspere. Some parallel might
perhaps be drawn between ^Eschylus with his grand language ((o»/yuara
yo/^oTrayr;, Arist. Frogs, 824) and Marlowe with his * mighty line.'

Now turn to the Elizabethan age. Does not the direct political use
of art disappear or greatly decrease with the growth of art 1 Compare
Spenser with Milton. Mr Simpson's paper refers to Barclay's
Argenis with its numerous references to historical persons : not less
crowded with historical references is the Faerie Queens. Now in
Milton you get the great artist as opposed to the lesser man. In
him, undramatic as his genius was, these political references are
much reduced. They are not absent ; there are certain striking
passages in Paradise Lost referring to the London and the England
of his own day ; Samson Agonistes contains allusions to himself and
his times ; yet what a difference in this respect between Spenser and
Milton.

Now turn to another English period. Compare Smollett and
Fielding. The world is agreed that Fielding was the greater artist.
Now Smollett is crowded with allusions to the events and the persons
of his time. You might even find the history of the age in his
works. But in Fielding, though such references are not absent,
they are considerably reduced.

Tn our own time I think we might take as specimens of the
different kind or degrees of art such a novel as Lothair and any
one of George Eliot's. It was said that any one who lived in a
certain society was able to recognize every person in Lothair. It
was said some people had a key to the portraiture there given.
Now with regard to George Eliot's works, one cannot tear them
away from the time in which they have grown ; but certainly there
is not in them such a precision of political and personal reference.
They belong to art, not to photography.

I should suggest, then, that as we survey this question we come to
the conclusion that, Shakspere being a greater artist than Nash and
Greene, we shall not find manifest or thinly-disguised political
allusion so frequent in him as in them. Nash indeed was a born
pamphleteer. Greene was little more than a notable lyrist at his
best. I believe that a supreme artist if he found the stage turned into
a mere bear-garden of controversy would leave it. See Spenser's
Tears of the Muses, Thalia, where ' our pleasant Willy,' whoever it
was, shrinks from the stage so perverted. The drama is indeed at
a low ebb when it devotes itself to personalities. Observe its con-

HAMLET NOTE. LAND-DAMN IN WINTERS TALE. 511

dition in Fielding's time, when his ridicule of Sir Robert Walpolc
led to the appointment of the stage-censorship, which still exists. In
each case careful judgment must he exercised as to how far political
allusions are to he admitted.

Now with regard to Tamburlaine there are points on which I
must venture to differ from Mr Simpson, who says Tamburlaine
referred to Philip II. Eead the lines at the end of Tamburlaine.
Surely, with these lines hefore us, to say nothing of other parts of
the play, it is impossible to identify the Scythian monarch with
Philip II. As Tamburlaine dies Amyras speaks thus :

" Meet heaven and earth, and here let all things end,
For earth hath spent the pride of all her fruit,
And Heaven consumed his choicest living fire !
Let earth and heaven his timeless death deplore,
For both their worths will equal him no more."

Hamlet Discussion. On p. 495, 1. 7 — 9, the Ghost's 'freeze thy
young blood,' I. iv. 16, and 'thou noble youth,' 1. 38, should have
been instanc't. How can one believe that a fat fellow of thirty
could have been calld i a youth ' ] As another of the inconsistencies
in Hamlet may perhaps be quoted Hamlet's uncertainty about the
future life in his soliloquy * To be, or not to be,' and his certainty
that if he killd his uncle father-in-law while praying, he'd send his
soul to heaven. But I've always lookt on this latter as a mere
excuse of Hamlet's for putting-off the doing of his duty, the re
venging of his father's murder. — F.

Land-damn: Winter's Tale, II. i. 143, in Antigonus's threat
against the suppos'd slanderer who'd accus'd Hermione of adultery.
The following explanation of the word is from Notes $ Queries, 5th
Ser., vol. iii. p. 464, June 12, 1875 :

"Until I read the paragraphs in ' N. $ Q.J I never had any
difficulty in knowing what Antigonus meant. Forty years ago an
old custom was still in use in this district. When any slanderer was
detected, or any parties discovered in adultery, it was usual to Ian-
dan1 them. This was done by the rustics traversing from house to
house along the ' country side/ blowing trumpets and beating drums
or pans and kettles. When an audience was assembled, the de
linquents' names were proclaimed ; and they were thus land-damned ;
so that when Antigonus says :

' Would I knew the villain,
I would land-damn him,' &c.,

he simply referred, I think, to this ancient and probably wholesome
{<1 So pronounced."

TRANSACTIONS. 33

512 CADE'S WAX IN HEN. vi. CANNON-HEALTHS IN HAMLET.

custom of l damning ' throughout the ' land,' that everybody might
know the villain, and treat him accordingly.

THORNCLIFFE."
" Burton."

Landan must be an imitative word. In Notes fy Queries, 5th
Ser. IV, July 3, 1875, p. 4, J. T. M. says " that in Lincolnshire and
Notts I always heard the old custom alluded to called randan, and
not landan ; and Mr Hensleigh "Wedgwood writes, 'It is hardly
doubtful that landan, like randan or rantan, is a mere represent
ation of continued noise/ Randan, a noise or uproar (Gloucester)
— Halliwell. ' Landan, lantan, rantan, are used by some Glouces
tershire people in the sense of scouring or correcting to some purpose,
and also of rattling or rating severely/ — Dean Miles's Glossary in
Halliwell. The true formation of the word is seen in the French
rantanplan, used, like our rubadub, for the beating of a drum." p. 3.
— F. J. F.

2 Hen. VI. Act IV. Sc. ii. Shakspere, in his humourful carica
ture of Cade — the man who was "right discreet in his answers,"
Stowe's Annales, p. 644 — makes him complain of the evils of wax : —

" Some say the bee stings : but I say, 'tis the bee's wax ; for I
did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since."

And it may be of interest to note that in the Demands of the real
Cade, "The Captaine of the Commons," on Hehry VI., the evils of
wax are also complaind of, though here it is "the greene waxe,"
that is, estreats out of the Court of Exchequer, under the green-wax
seal of the Court, evidently used extortionately : —

5. " Item, desireth the said Captaine and commons, that all
the extortions vsed daily among the common people, might be laid
downe, that is to say, the greene Waxe, the which is falsely vsed, to
the perpetual destruction of the kings true commons of Kent." —
Stowe, p. 643.— F. J. F.

Hamlet, V. ii. 288-9, Fol. 281, 1. "Giue me the Cups,
And let the Kettle to the Trumpets speake,
The Trumpet to the Cannoneer without,
The Cannons to the Heauens, the Heauen to Earth,
' Now the King drinkes to Hamlet: " 289

Compare this, — by ' Maister William Segar, Garter, king at Armes,'
—from Stowe's Annales, 1605, p. 1436 :—

"Thursday the 14. day [of July, 1603]. . . That afternoone the
king [of Denmark] went aboord the English ship [which was lying

DANISH DRUNKENNESS, HAMLET. 'EXTREME PARTS/ L. L. LOST. 513

in the Sound, just off Elsinore1], and had a banket prepared for him
vpoii the vpper decks, which were hung with an Awning of cloath
of Tissue : euery health reported sixe, eight, or ten shot of great Ordin
ance, so that during the king's abode, the ship discharged 160 shot"

Hamlet, I. iv. 8—20. Of the King's " solemne feast to the [Eng
lish] embassadour," Segar says (Stowe, 1436), "it were superfluous
to tell you of all superfluities that were vsed ; and it would make
a man sick to heare of their drunken healths : vse hath brought it
into a fashion, & fashio??. made it a habit, which ill beseemes our
nation to imitate." On p. 1437, Segar also says of the English
Ambassador, "my lord, being weary of those Bachinall entertain
ments, took there his leaue of the kings maiesty, entending that
night to lye aboord." — F. J. F.

"THE EXTREME PARTS OF TIME" IN LOVE'S
LABOURS LOST, V. ii. 750.

[Dr Brinsley Nicholson has just explaind satisfactorily this well-
known crux : —

Kin. The extreme parts of time, extremelie formes
All causes to the purpose of his speed :
And often at his verie loose decides
That, which long processe could not arbitrate.

1623 Folio, p. 143, col. 1 (Booth's reprint)—
and I therefore print his letter to me. — F. J. F.]

' The extreme parts ' are the end parts, ' extremities,' — as, of our
body, the fingers ; of chains, the final links ; of given portions of
time, the last of those units into which we choose to divide them.
Afterwards (1. 797, " Now, at the latest minute of the houre,") the
king, representing the stay of the princess as for an hour, calls ' the
extreme part ' " the latest minute," and the thought in both passages
is so far the same. It is not however said, that our decision is neces
sitated by the extremity of the moment, though this is perhaps sug
gested to us by the sound of the words used. But that concurring

1 Of the Castle, Stowe says : " This Castell of Elsenor is a quadrant, and
one off the goodliest fortifications in that part of the world, both for strength
and most curious Architecture, and was built by Frederick, this King's
[Christian IV's] father. There is in the same, many Princely lodgings, and
especially one great Chamber : it is hanged with Tapistary of fresh coloured
silke without gold, wherein all the Danish kings are exprest in antique habits,
according to their seuerall times, with their armes and inscriptions, conteining
all their conquests & victories : the roofe is of inlett woods, and hung full of
great branches of brasse for lights." — ib. p. 1436.

514 'THE EXTREME PARTS OF TIME/ LOVE'S LABOURS LOST.

circumstances, and therefore Time, as the producer of those circum
stances, so influence our decision that he, and not we, may be called
the decider. Hence Time as personified, and as the intelligential
agent of whom the extreme parts are but the instrumental members,
is considered as the true nominative to the verb " formes," and is
represented as fashioning or moulding all causes or questions to the
purposes of his speed, that is, to his own intents, or to those of the
fate or providence of which he is the sub-agent. This thought has. been
forced upon the King by finding that his high resolves of study were
at once broken by the coming of the Princess, while her sudden de
parture shows him that he cannot do without her love. And he
urges it as an excuse for the intrusion of his love on her time of
grief, and as an excuse for her favourable reply.

In the next lines, though still personifying Time, the King
changes his illustration. Often the archer may weigh variously all
the circumstances, the bow, the arrow, the intended strength of shot
and elevation, the wind and the like, and so vary from moment to
moment, but ' at the very loose,' or loosing of the shaft (an act the
proper doing of which was much dwelt on by archers : Ascharn,
Toxoph. p. 145, ed. 1864) he comes to a quick and determinate de
cision. " So during your stay, Princess," says the King, " I and my
lords acted doubtfully between our former resolves and our new loves,
and you have dallied with us : now at your departure, at the last
moment, I decide, and ask your love ; do you answer with the same
determinateness." In retort, the Princess most consistently decides
in accord with the events which time has purposed in her regard,
for the declaration of the King is only one of these, another and the
first being the news of her father's death.

The thought of the first two lines is allied and similar to Hamlet's

There's a Divinity that shapes our ends
Rough-hew them how we will,

just as the rest expresses the similar idea specially illustrated in the
catastrophe of that play. But here the subject being of a gentler nature,
the King speaks more conversationally and less reflectively than Ham
let does, and of " time," and not of a " providence or Divinity."

B. NICHOLSON.
May 27, 1875.

THE

NEW SHAKSPEEE SOCIETY'S

TRANSACTIONS.

1874.

PART II.

es I. 10. 2.

JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PRINTERS.

APPENDIX TO PART I.

1. ON THE SEVERAL SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND
FLETCHER IN THE PLAY OF HENRY VIII. ; by
JAMES SPEDDING, ESQ., M.A., Honorary Fellow of Trinity
College, Cambridge, Editor of Bacon's Works, &C.1

MB COLLIER observes that the principal question which arises
with regard to the play of Henry VIII. is when it was written. By
whom it was written has not yet been made a question, so far as I
know ; at least not in print. And yet several of our most consider
able critics have incidentally betrayed a consciousness that there is
something peculiar either in the execution, or the structure, or the
general design of it, which should naturally suggest a doubt on this
point. Dr Johnson observes that the genius of Shakspere comes in
and goes out with Katharine, and that the rest of the play might be
easily conceived and easily written — a fact, if it be a fact, so remark
able as to call for explanation. Coleridge, in one of his attempts to
classify Shakspere's plays (1802), distinguished Henry VIII. as
gelegeriheitsgediclit ; in another (1819) as " a sort of historical masque
or show-play ; " thereby betraying a consciousness that there was
something singular and exceptional about it. Ulrici, who has applied
himself with a German ingenuity to discover in each of Shakspere's
plays a profound moral purpose, is obliged to confess that he can
make nothing of Henry VIII., and is driven to suppose that what
we have was meant only for a first part, to be followed by a second

1 Originally printed in The Gentleman's Magazine for Aug., 1850, p. 115 —
123, with the title " Who wrote Shakspere's Henry VIII. ? " and now reprinted
by Mr Spedding's leave.

TRANSACTIONS. 1*

'2* THE SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII.

in which the odds would have been made even. Mr Knight, whose
faith is proof against such doubts, does indeed treat Henry VIII. as
the perfect crown and consummation of the series of historical plays,
and succeeds in tracing through the first four acts a consistent and
sufficient moral ; but when he comes to the fifth, which should crown
all, he is obliged to put us off with a reference to the historians ;
admitting that the catastrophe which history had provided as the
crowning moral of the whole is not exhibited in the play, " but who
(he asks) can forget it 1 " — an apology for the gravest of all defects
which seems to me quite inadmissible. A peculiarity of another
kind has also been detected, I forget by whom, namely, the unusual
number of lines with a redundant syllable at the end, of which it is
said there are twice as many in this as in any other play of Shak-
spere's ; — a circumstance well worthy of consideration, for so broad a
difference was not likely to be accidental ; and one which is the more
remarkable when viewed in connection with another peculiarity of
style pointed out by Mr Knight, viz. the number of passages in
which the lines are so run into each other that it is impossible to
separate them in reading by the slightest pause at the end of each.
Now the passage which he selects in illustration is one in which the
proportion of lines with the redundant syllable is unusually small ;
and therefore it would appear that this play is remarkable for the
prevalence of two peculiarities of different kinds, which are in some
degree irreconcileable with each other.

I shall have something further to say on these points presently.
I mention them here only to show that critical observers have been
long conscious of certain singularities in this play which require to
be accounted for. And, leaving the critics, I might probably appeal
to the individual consciousness of each reader, and ask him whether
he has not always felt that, in spite of some great scenes which have
made actors and actresses famous, and many beautiful speeches
which adorn our books of extracts (and which, by the way, lose little
or nothing by separation from their context, a most rare thing in
Shakspere), the effect of this play as a ivhole is weak and disappoint
ing. The truth is that the interest, instead of rising towards the
end, falls away utterly, and leaves us in the last act among persons

THE SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII. 3*

whom we scarcely know, and events for which we do not care. The
strongest sympathies which have been awakened in us run opposite
to the course of the action. Our sympathy is for the grief and
goodness of Queen Katharine, while the course of the action requires
us to entertain as a theme of joy and compensatory satisfaction the
coronation of Anne Bullen and the birth of her daughter ; which are
in fact a part of Katharine's injury, and amount to little less than
the ultimate triumph of wrong. For throughout the play the king's
cause is not only felt by us, but represented to us, as a bad one. We
hear, indeed, of conscientious scruples as to the legality of his first
marriage ; but we are not made, nor indeed asked, to believe that
they are sincere, or to recognize in his new marriage either the hand
of Providence, or the consummation of any worthy object, or the
victory of any of those more common frailties of humanity with
which we can sympathize. The mere caprice of passion drives the
king into the commission of what seems a great iniquity ; our com
passion for the victim of it is elaborately excited ; no attempt is
made to awaken any counter-sympathy for Mm : yet his passion has
its way, and is crowned with all felicity, present and to come. The
effect is much like that which would have been produced by the
Winter's Tale if Hermione had died in the fourth act in consequence
of the jealous tyranny of Leontes, and the play had ended with the
coronation of a new queen and the christening of a new heir, no
period of remorse intervening. It is as if Nathan's rebuke to David
had ended, not with the doom of death to the child just born, but
with a prophetic promise of the felicities of Solomon.

This main defect is sufficient of itself to mar the effect of the
play as a whole. But there is another, which though less vital is
not less unaccountable. The greater part of the fifth act, in which
the interest ought to be gathering to a head, is occupied with matters
in which we have not been prepared to take any interest by what
went before, and on which no interest is reflected by what comes
after. The scenes in the gallery and council-chamber, though full of
life and vigour, and, in point of execution, not unworthy of Shak-
spere, are utterly irrelevant to the business of the play ; for what
have we to do with the quarrel between Gardiner and Cranmerl

4* THE SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII.

Nothing in the play is explained by it, nothing depends upon it.
It is used only (so far as the argument is concerned) as a preface for
introducing Cranmer as godfather to Queen Elizabeth, which might
have been done as a matter of course without any preface at all. The
scenes themselves are indeed both picturesque and characteristic and
historical, and might probably have been introduced with excellent
effect into a dramatised life of Henry VIII. But historically they
do not belong to the place where they are introduced here, and
poetically they have in this place no value, but the reverse.

With the fate of Wolsey, again, in whom our second interest
centres, the business of this last act does not connect itself any more
than with that of Queen Katharine. The fate of Wolsey would
have made a noble subject for a tragedy in itself, and might very
well have been combined with the tragedy of Katharine ; but, as an
introduction to the festive solemnity with which the play concludes,
the one seems to me as inappropriate as the other.

Nor can the existence of these defects be accounted for by any
inherent difficulty in the subject. It cannot be said that they were
in any way forced upon the dramatist by the facts of the story. The
incidents of the reign of Henry VIII. could not, it is true, like those
of an ancient tradition or an Italian novel, be altered at pleasure to
suit the purposes of the artist ; but they admitted of many different
combinations, by which the effect of the play might have been
modified to almost any extent either at the beginning or the end.
By taking in a larger period and carrying the story on to the birth
of Anne Bullen's still-born son and her own execution, it would have
yielded the argument of a great tragedy and tale of retributive
justice. Or, on the other hand, by throwing the sorrows of Katharine
more into the background, by bringing into prominence the real
scruples which were in fact entertained by learned and religious men
and prevalent among the people, by representing the question of the
divorce as the battle-ground on which the question between Popery
and Protestantism was tried out, by throwing a strong light upon
the engaging personal qualities of Anne Bullen herself, and by con
necting with the birth of Elizabeth the ultimate triumph of the Re
formed religion, of which she was to become so distinguished a

THE SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII. 5*

champion, our sympathies might have been turned that way, and so
reconciled to the prosperous consummation. But it is evident that
no attempt has been made to do this. The afflictions, the virtue,
and the patience of Katharine are elaborately exhibited. To these
and to the pathetic penitence of Wolsey our attention is especially
commended in the prologue, and with them it is entirely occupied
to the end of the fourth act. Anne Bullen is kept almost out of
sight. Such reason and religion as there were in Henry's scruples
are scarcely touched upon, and hardly a word is introduced to remind
us that the dispute with the Pope was the forerunner of the Eeform-
ation.

< I know no other play in Shakspere which is chargeable with a
fault like this, none in which the moral sympathy of the spectator
is not carried along with the main current of action to the end. In
all the historical tragedies a providence may be seen presiding over
the development of events, as just and relentless as the fate in a
Greek tragedy. Even in Henry IV. , where the comic element pre
dominates, we are never allowed to exult in the success of the wrong
doer, or to forget the penalties which are due to guilt. And if it be
true that in the romantic comedies our moral sense does sometimes
suffer a passing shock, it is never owing to an error in the general
design, but always to some incongruous circumstance in the original
story which has lain in the way and not been entirely got rid of, and
which after all offends us rather as an incident improbable in itself
than as one for which our sympathy is unjustly demanded. The
singularity of Henry VIII. is that, while four-fifths of the play are
occupied in matters which are to make us incapable of mirth, —

Be sad, as we would make you : Think ye see

The very persons of our history

As they were living ; think you see them great

And followed with the general throng and sweat

Of thousand friends : then in a moment see

How soon this mightiness meets misery !

And if you can be merry then, I'll say

A man may weep upon his wedding day, —

6* THE SHARES OF SHAKSI'ERE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII.

the remaining fifth is devoted to joy and triumph, and ends with
universal festivity :

This day let no man think

He has business at his house ; for all shall stay :
This little one shall make it holiday.

Of this strange inconsistency, or at least of a certain poorness in
the general effect which is amply accounted for by such incon
sistency, I had for some time been vaguely conscious ; and I had
also heard it casually remarked by a man of first-rate judgment on
such a point that many passages in Henry VIII. were very much
in the manner of Fletcher; when I happened to take up a book of
extracts, and opened by chance on the following beautiful lines :

Would I had never trod this English earth,

Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it !

Ye have angels' faces, but heaven knows your hearts.

What will become of me now, wretched lady 1

I am the most unhappy woman living.

Alas ! poor wenches, where are now your fortunes ?

Shipwrecked upon a kingdom, where no pity,

No friends, no hope ; no kindred weep for me,

Almost no grave allowed me : — Like the lily,

That once was mistress of the field and flourish'd,

I'll hang my head and perish.

Was it possible to believe that these lines were written by
Shakspere? I had often amused myself with attempting to trace
the gradual change of his versification from the simple monotonous
cadence of the Two Gentlemen of Verona, to the careless felicities
of the Winter's Tale and Cymbeline, of which it seemed as impossible
to analyse the law as not to feel the melody ; but I could find no
stage in that progress to which it seemed possible to refer these
lines. I determined upon this to read the play through with an
eye to this especial point, and see whether any solution of the mystery
would present itself. The result of my examination was a clear
conviction that at least two different hands had been employed

THE SHARES OF SHAKSPBRE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII. f¥

in the composition of Henry VIII. ; if not three ; and that they
had worked, not together, but alternately upon distinct portions
of it.

This is a conclusion which cannot of course be established by
detached extracts, which in questions of style are doubtful evidence at
best. The only satisfactory evidence upon which it can be determined
whether a given scene was or was not by Shakspere, is to be found
in the general effect produced on the mind, the ear, and the feelings by
a free and broad perusal ; and if any of your readers care to follow me
in this inquiry, I would ask him to do as I did, — that is, to read
the whole play straight through, with an eye open to notice the
larger differences of effect, but without staying to examine small
points. The effect of my own experiment was as follows : —

The opening of the play, — the conversation between Buckingham,
Norfolk, and Abergavenny, — seemed to have the full stamp of Shak
spere, in his latest manner : the same close-packed expression ; the
same life, and reality, and freshness; the same rapid and abrupt
turnings of thought, so quick that language can hardly follow fast
enough ; the same impatient activity of intellect and fancy, which
having once disclosed an idea cannot wait to work it orderly out ;
the same daring confidence in the resources of language, which plunges
headlong into a sentence without knowing how it is to come forth ; the
same careless metre which disdains to produce its harmonious effects
by the ordinary devices, yet is evidently subject to a master of
harmony ; the same entire freedom from book-language and common
place ; all the qualities, in short, which distinguish the magical hand
which has never yet been successfully imitated.

In the scene in the council-chamber which follows (Act i. Sc. 2),
where the characters of Katharine and Wolsey are brought out,
I found the same characteristics equally strong.

But the instant I entered upon the third. scene,. in which the Lord
Chamberlain, Lord Sands, and Lord Lovel converse, I was conscious of
a total change. I felt as if I had passed suddenly out of the language
of nature into the language of the stage, or of some conventional mode
of conversation. The structure of the verse was quite different and
full of mannerism. The expression became suddenly diffuse and

8* THE SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII.

languid. The wit wanted mirth and character. And all this was
equally true of the supper scene which closes the first Act.

The second act brought me back to the tragic vein, but it was
not the tragic vein of Shakspere. When I compared the eager,
impetuous, and fiery language of Buckingham in the first Act with
the languid and measured cadences of his farewell speech, I felt
that the difference was too great to be accounted for by the mere
change of situation, without supposing also a change of writers.
The presence of death produces great changes in men, but no such
change as we have here.

When in like manner I compared the Henry and Wolsey of the
scene which follows (Act ii. Sc. 2) with the Henry and Wolsey
of the council-chamber (Act i. Sc. 2), I perceived a difference scarcely
less striking. The dialogue, through the whole scene, sounded still
slow and artificial.

The next scene brought another sudden change. And, as in
passing from the second to the third scene of the first Act, I had
seemed to be passing all at once out of the language of nature into that
of convention, so in passing from the second to the third scene of the
second Act (in which Anne Bullen appears, I may say for the first
time, for in the supper scene she was merely a conventional court
lady without any character at all,) I seemed to pass not less suddenly
from convention back again into nature. And when I considered
that this short and otherwise insignificant passage contains all that
we ever see of Anne (for it is necessary to forget her former appearance)
and yet how clearly the character comes out, how very a woman she
is, and yet how distinguishable from any other individual woman, I
had no difficulty in acknowledging that the sketch came from the
same hand which drew Perdita.

Next follows the famous trial-scene. And here I could as little
doubt that I recognized the same hand to which we owe the trial of
Hermione. When I compared the language of Henry and of Wolsey
throughout this scene to the end of the Act, with their language in the
council-chamber (Act i. Sc. 2), I found that it corresponded in all essen
tial features : when I compared it with their language in the second scene
of the second Act, I perceived that it was altogether different. Katha-

THE SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII. 9*

rine also, as she appears in this scene, was exactly the same person as
she was in the council-chamber ; but when I went on to the first scene
of the third Act, which represents her interview with Wolsey and
Campeius, I found her as much changed as Buckingham was after
his sentence, though without any alteration of circumstances to
account for an alteration of temper. Indeed the whole of this scene
seemed to have all the peculiarities of Fletcher, both in conception,
language, and versification, without a single feature that reminded
me of Shakspere ; and, since in both passages the true narrative of
Cavendish is followed minutely and carefully, and both are therefore
copies from the same original and in the same style of art, it was the
mo^e easy to compare them with each other.

In the next scene (Act iii. Sc. 2) I seemed again to get out of
Fletcher into Shakspere ; though probably not into Shakspere pure ;
a scene by another hand perhaps which Shakspere had only remodeled,
or a scene by Shakspere which another hand had worked upon to
make it fit the place. The speeches interchanged between Henry
and Wolsey seemed to be entirely Shakspere's ; but in the altercation
between Wolsey and the lords which follows I could recognize little
or nothing of his peculiar manner, while many passages were strongly
marked with the favourite Fletcherian cadence;1 and as for the
famous 'Farewell, a long farewell,' &c., though associated by means
of Enfield's Speaker with my earliest notions of Shakspere, it ap
peared (now that my mind was opened to entertain the doubt) to be
long entirely and unquestionably to Fletcher.

Of the 4th Act I did not so well know what to think. For the
most part it seemed to bear evidence of a more vigorous hand than
Fletcher's, with less mannerism, especially in the description of the
coronation, and the character of Wolsey ; and yet it had not to my
mind the freshness and originality of Shakspere, It was pathetic

1 As for instance : —

Now I feel

Of what base metal ye are moulded, — Envy.
How eagerly ye follow my disgraces
As if it fed ye, and how sleek and wanton
Ye appear in everything may bring my ruin I
Follow your envious courses, men of malice :
Ye have Christian warrant for them, &c.

10* THE SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII.

and graceful, but one could see how it was done. Katharine's last
speeches, however, smacked strongly again of Fletcher. And
altogether it seemed to me that if this Act had occurred in one of the
plays written by Beaumont and Fletcher in conjunction it would
probably have been thought that both of them had had a hand in it.1

The first scene of the 5th Act, and the opening of the second, I
should again have confidently ascribed to Shakspere, were it not that
the whole passage seemed so strangely out of place. I could only
suppose (what may indeed be supposed well enough if my conjecture
with regard to the authorship of the several parts be correct), that
the task of putting the whole together had been left to an inferior
hand ; in which case I should consider this to be a genuine piece of
Shakspere's work, spoiled by being introduced where it has no busi
ness. In the execution of the christening scene, on the other hand
(in spite again of the earliest and strongest associations), I could see
no evidence of Shakspere's hand at all ; while in point of design it
seemed inconceivable that a judgment like his could have been con
tent with a conclusion so little in harmony with the prevailing spirit
and purpose of the piece.

Such was the general result of my examination of this play with
reference to the internal evidence of style and treatment. With
regard to external evidence, I can only say that I know of none
which stands in the way of any of these conclusions. Henry VIII.
was first printed in the folio of 1623. It was printed no doubt as
Shakspere's, without any hint that any one else had had a hand in
it. But so were Titus Andronicus and all the three parts of Henry
VI. The editors were not critics, and it was not then the fashion
for authors to trouble the public with their jealousies. The play
would naturally go by the name of Shakspere, having so much in it
of his undoubted and best workmanship, and as such it would
naturally take its place in the general collection. With regard to
the date of its composition we have no conclusive evidence ; but that
which approaches nearest to that character goes to show that it was
acted, and considered as a new play, on St Peter's day, 1613, when

1 Mr Fleay does not admit any trace of Beaumont's hand in Henry VI11.
— F. J. F.

THE SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII. 11*

the Globe Theatre was burnt down. The play then acted was cer
tainly on the subject of Henry VIIL, and contained at least one
incident which occurs in the present work — the discharge of cham
bers upon the arrival of the masquers in the supper-scene. It was
called, indeed, All is True ; but that title suits the present work
perfectly well ; and it may have been the original one, though the
editors in including it among the histories preferred the historical
title. There is evidence likewise that a play called The Interlude of
Henry VIIL was in existence in 1604, but none to show that it was
by Shakspere, still less that it was the present play in its present
state, which is to me, I confess, quite incredible. Altogether, there
fore, I may say that if any one be inclined to think that Henry
VIIL was composed in 1612 or 1613, and that Beaumont and
Fletcher were employed in the composition as well as Shakspere,
there is nothing in the external evidence to forbid him.

Here, however, a new question will arise. Supposing the
inequality of the workmanship in different parts of the play to be
admitted, as by most people I think it will, may not this be suf
ficiently accounted for by supposing that it was written by Shakspere
at different periods 1 May it not have been an early performance of
his own, which in his later life he corrected, and in great part re
wrote ; as we know he did in some other cases 1

I think not ; for two reasons. First, because if he had set
about the revisal of it on so large a scale in the maturity of his
genius, he would have addressed himself to remove its principal
defect, which is the incoherence of the general design. Secondly,
because the style of those parts which upon this supposition would
be referred to the earlier period does not at all resemble Shakspere's
style at any stage of its development.

This is another conclusion which it is impossible to establish by
extracts in any moderate quantity. But let any one who doubts it
try it by the following test. Let him read an act in each of the
following plays, taking them in succession : — Two Gentlemen of
Verona ; Richard II. ; Richard III. ; Romeo and Juliet ; Henri/
IV. (part 2) ; As You Like It ; Twelfth Night ; Measure for Mea
sure ; Lear; Antony and Cleopatra; Coriolanus ; Winter's Tale;

12* THE SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII.

and then let him say at what period of Shakspere's life he can be sup
posed to have written such lines as these —

All good people,

You that thus far have come to pity me,
Hear what I say, and then go home and lose me.
I have this day received a traitor's judgment,
And by that name must die : Yet heaven bear witness,
And if I have a conscience, let it sink me,
Even as the axe falls, if I be not faithful.
The law I bear no malice for my death,
It has done, upon the premises, but justice :
But those who sought it I could wish more Christians.
Be what they will, I heartily forgive them :
Yet let them look they glory not in mischief
Nor build their evils on the graves of great men ;
For them my guiltless blood must cry against them.
For further life in this life I ne'er hope,
Nor will I sue, although the King have mercies,
More than I dare make faults. You few that loved me,
And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham,
His noble friends and fellows, whom to leave
Is only bitter to him, only dying,
Go with me like good angels to my end ;
And as the long divorce of steel falls on me,
Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,
And lift my soul to heaven !

If I am not much mistaken he will be convinced that Shakspere's
style never passed, nor ever could have passed, through this phase.
In his earlier plays, when his versification was regular and his lan
guage comparatively diffuse, there is none of the studied variety of
cadence which we find here ; and by the time his versification had
acquired more variety, the current of his thought had become more
gushing, rapid, and full of eddies ; not to add that at no period
whatever in the development of his style was the proportion of
thought and fancy to words and images so small as it appears in

THE SHARES OP SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII. 13*

this speech of Buckingham's. Perhaps there is no passage in Shak-
spere which so nearly resembles it as Richard II. 's farewell to his
Queen ; from which indeed it seems to have been imitated ; but
observe the difference —

Good sometime Queen, prepare thee hence for France :

Think I am dead : and that even here thou tak'st

As from my death-bed my last living leave.

In "Winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire

With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales

Of woeful ages long ago betid :

And ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief,

Tell thou the lamentable tale of me,

And send the hearers weeping to their beds.

For why, the senseless brands will sympathize

The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,

And in compassion weep the fire out :

And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,

For the deposing of a rightful King.

And if we compare the two entire scenes the difference will
appear ten times greater, for Richard's passion makes a new subject
of every passing incident and image, and has as many changes as an
-^Eolian harp.

To a practised ear the test which I have proposed will, I think,
be sufficient, and more conclusive perhaps than any other. Those
who are less quick in perceiving the finer rhythmical effects may be
more struck with the following consideration. It has been observed,
as I said, that lines with a redundant syllable at the end occur in
Henry VIII. twice as often as in any of Shakspere's other plays.
Now, it will be found on examination that this observation does
not apply to all parts of the play alike, but only to those which I
have noticed as, in their general character, un-Shaksperian. In those
parts which have the stamp of Shakspere upon them in other
respects, the proportion of lines with the redundant syllable is not
greater than in other of his later plays — Cymbeline, for instance, and
the Winter's Tale. In the opening scene of Cymbeline, an unim-

14* THE SHARES OP SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII.

passioned conversation, chiefly narrative, we find twenty-five such
lines in sixty-seven ; in the third scene of the third Act, which is in
a higher strain of poetry but still calm, we find twenty-three in one
hundred and seven ; in the fourth scene, which is full of sudden
turns of passion, fifty-three in one hundred and eighty-two. Taking
one scene with another, therefore, the lines with the redundant
syllable are in the proportion of about two to seven. In the Winter's
Tale we may take the second and third scenes of the third Act as
including a sufficient variety of styles ; and here we find seventy-one
in two hundred and forty-eight ; the same proportion as nearly as
possible, though the scenes were selected at random.

Let us now see how it is in Henry VIII. Here is a table show
ing the proportion in each successive scene : —

Act.

Scene.

Lines.

Red. Syll.

Propn.

Author.

I.

1.

225

63

1 to 3-5

[Shakspere.

2

215

74

— 2-9

„

3&4.

172

100

— 1-7

Fletcher.

II.

1.

164

97

— 1-6

„

2.

129

77

— 1-6

M

3.

107

41

— 2-6

Shakspere.

4.

230

72

— 3-1

„

III.

1.

166

119

- 1-3

Fletcher.

*2.

193

62

— 3-

Shakspere

3.

257

152

- 1-6

Fletcher.

IV.

1.

116

57

— 2-

„

2.

80

51

— 1-5

M

3.

93

51

— 1-8

H

V.

1.

176

68

— 2-5

Shakspere (altered).

2.

217

115

— 1-8

Fletcher.

3.

almost

all prose.

„

4.

73

44

— 1-6

„ ]

Here then we have, out of sixteen separate scenes, six in which
the redundant syllable occurs (taking one with another), about as
* As far as the exit of King Henry.

THE SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII. 15*

often as in Cymbeline and the Winter's Tale ; the proportion being
never higher than two in five, which is the same as in the opening
scene of Cymbeline ; never lower than two in seven, which is the
same as in the trial scene in the Winter's Tale; and the average
being about one in three ; while in the remaining ten scenes the
proportion of such lines is never less than one in two ; in the greater
number of them scarcely more than two in three. Nor is there
anything in the subject or character of the several scenes by which
such a difference can be accounted for. The light and loose con
versation at the end of the first Act, the plaintive and laboured
oration in the second, the querulous and passionate altercation in the
third, the pathetic sorrows of Wolsey, the tragic death of Katharine,
the high poetic prophecy of Cranmer, are equally distinguished by
this peculiarity. A distinction so broad and so uniform, running
through so large a portion of the same piece, cannot have been acci
dental ; and the more closely it is examined the more clearly will it
appear that the metre in these two sets of scenes is managed upon
entirely different principles, and bears evidence of different workmen.
To explain all the particular differences would be to analyze the
structure first of Shakspere's metre, then of Fletcher's ; a dry and
tedious task. But the general difference may easily be made evident
by placing any undoubted specimen of Shakspere's later workman
ship by the side of the one, and of Fletcher's middle workmanship
by the side of the other ; the identity in both cases will be felt at
once. The only difficulty is to find a serious play known to be the
unassisted composition of Fletcher, and to have been written about
the year 1612: for in those which he wrote before his partnership
with Beaumont his distinctive mannerism is less marked ; in those
which he wrote after Beaumont's death it is more exaggerated. But
read the last Act of the Honest Maris Fortune, which was first
represented in 1613; the opening of the third Act of the Captain,
which appeared towards the close of 1612 ; and the great scene ex
tracted by Charles Lamb from the fourth Act of Thierry and
Theodoret,1 which, though not produced I believe till 1621, is

1 In this scene we have 154 lines with the redundant syllable out of 232 ;
2 in 3 ; exactly the same proportion which we find in so many scenes of Henry

16* THE SHARES OF SHAKSPEHE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIIL

thought to have been written much earlier ; and you will have suffi
cient samples of his middle style, in all its varieties, to make the
comparison. In all these, besides the general structure of the lan
guage and rhythm, there are many particular verbal and rhythmical
affectations which will at once catch any ear that is accustomed to
Shakspere, whose style is entirely free from them ; and every one of
these will be found as frequent in the un-Shaksperian portions of
Henry VIII. as in the above-mentioned passages, which are un
doubtedly Fletcher's.

Assuming then that Henry VIIL was written partly by Shak
spere, partly by Fletcher, with the assistance probably of some third
hand,1 it becomes a curious question, upon what plan their joint
labours were conducted. It was not unusual in those days, when a
play was wanted in a hurry, to set two or three or even four hands
at work upon it ; and the occasion of the Princes Elizabeth's marriage
(February 1612-13) may very likely have suggested the production
of a play representing the marriage of Henry VIIL and Anne Bullen.
Such an occasion would sufficiently account for the determination to
treat the subject not tragically ; the necessity for producing it im
mediately might lead to the employment of several hands; and
thence would follow inequality of workmanship and imperfect
adaptation of the several parts to each other. But this would not
explain the incoherency and inconsistency of the main design. Had
Shakspere been employed to make a design for a play which was to
end with the happy marriage of Henry and Anne Bullen, we may be
sure that he would not have occupied us through the four first Acts
with a tragic and absorbing interest in the decline and death of
Queen Katharine, and through half the fifth with a quarrel between
Cranmer and Gardiner, in which we have no interest. On the other
hand, since it is by Shakspere that all the principal matters and
characters are introduced, it is not likely that the general design of
the piece would be laid out by another. I should rather conjecture
that he had conceived the idea of a great historical drama on the

VIIL ; and no where else I think through the entire range of the Shaksperian
theatre.

1 See note above, p. 10*.

THE SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN HENRY VIII. 17*

subject of Henry VIII. which would have included the divorce of
Katharine, the fall of Wolsey, the rise of Cranmer, the coronation of
Anne Bullen, and the final separation of the English from the Romish
Church, which, being the one great historical event of the reign,
would naturally be chosen as the focus of poetic interest ; that he
had proceeded in the execution of this idea as far perhaps as the
third Act, which might have included the establishment of Cranmer
in the seat of highest ecclesiastical authority (the council-chamber
scene in the fifth being designed as an introduction to that) ; when,
finding that his fellows of the Globe were in distress for a new play
to honour the marriage of the Lady Elizabeth with, he thought that
his half-finished work might help them, and accordingly handed them
his manuscript to make what they could of it \ that they put it into
the hands of Eletcher (already in high repute as a popular and ex
peditious playwright), who finding the original design not very suit
able to the occasion and utterly beyond his capacity, expanded the
three acts into five, by interspersing scenes of show and magnificence,
and passages of description, and long poetical conversations, in which
his strength lay ; dropped all allusion to the great ecclesiastical revo
lution, which he could not manage and for which he had no materials
supplied him ; converted what should have been the middle into the
end ; and so turned out a splendid ' historical masque, or shew-play/
which was no doubt very popular then, as it has been ever since.

This is a bold conjecture, but it will account for all the pheno
mena. Read the portions which I have marked as Shakspere's by
themselves, and suppose them to belong to the first half of the play,
and they will not seem unworthy of him ; though the touches of an
inferior hand may perhaps be traced here and there, and the original
connection is probably lost beyond recovery in the interpolations.
Suppose again the design of the play as it stands to have been left to
Fletcher, and the want of moral consistency and coherency needs no
further explanation. The want of a just moral feeling is Fletcher's /
characteristic defect, and lies at the bottom of all that is most offen- •
sive in him, from his lowest mood to his highest. That it has not
in this case betrayed him into such gross inconsistencies and in
delicacies as usual may be explained by the fact that he was follow-

TRANSACT10NS. 2*

18* MR SPEDDING ON HENRY VIII. CONFIRMED BY MR HICKSON.

ing the Chronicles and had little room for his own inventions. A
comparison between this play and the Two Nolle Kinsmen, the
condition and supposed history of which is in many respects analo
gous,1 would throw further light upon the question. But this would
require too long a discussion.

J[AMES] S[PEDDING].
27 June, 1850.

A CONFIRMATION OF MR SPEDDING'S PAPER
ON THE AUTHORSHIP OF HENRY VIII.,

BY THE LATE SAMUEL HICKSON, ESQ.
(From Notes and Queries, 1st Ser. ii. 198 ; No. 43, Aug. 24, 1850.)

I HAD no sooner read the title of an Essay in the current number
of the Gentleman 's Magazine, " Who wrote Shakspeare's Henry
VIII. ? " than I became aware that I had been anticipated in at
least the publication of a discovery I had made three or four years
ago, but for the making known of which a favourable opportunity
had not occurred. The fact is, that I was anxious to arrive at a
more satisfactory conclusion than has yet presented itself to me ;
and a paper on the subject commenced more than two years ago,
I, with this feeling, laid aside. My present object is, to strengthen
the argument of the writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, by re
cording the fact that I, having no communication with him, or
knowledge of him, even of his name, should have arrived at exactly
the same conclusion as his own. That conclusion is (should any
of your readers not have seen the article referred to), that Fletcher
has at least an equal claim with Shakspeare to the authorship of
Henry VIII.

1 On this subject see an excellent article in the Westminster Review, vol.
xlvii. p. 59 ; which is especially valuable for the discovery of some of Shak-
spere's very finest workmanship among the scenes of the underplot, which
previous critics had set down as all alike worthless. [This 'excellent article,'
by the late Mr Samuel Hickson, follows on p. 25* of this Appendix. — F.]

MR SPEDDING ON HENRY VIII. CONFIRMED BY MR H1CKSON. 19*

In the unfinished paper to which I have alluded, having asked
how it was that, with so much to be learned personal to Shakspeare
from his works, our criticism was so limited, and having stated it to
be my intention to confine myself to the simple inquiry " What did
Shakspeare really write 1 " I continued : —

" To those who consider the text as having been settled ' by authority,' this
question may seem superfluous ; but, not to refer to plays of very early
date, in connection with which we could bring forward facts that, we doubt
not, would be considered sufficiently startling ; we now state it as our belief
that a great portion of the play of Henry VIII., nay more than half, was not
written by Shakspeare."

My intention now is, not to enter into any argument in support
of this view, but to state the results, which will be shown in the
following extract from my note book.

Henry VIII.

"Act I. SCENE 1. Shakespeare.

„ 2. Ditto.

„ 3. Fletcher.

„ 4. Ditto.
Act II. „ 1. Ditto.

„ 2. Ditto.

„ 3. Shakespeare.

„ 4. Ditto.

Act III. „ 1. Fletcher.

,, 2. Shakespeare (ending with ' what appetite you
have.'

„ 2. Fletcher (beginning from the above).
Act IV. „ 1. Ditto.

„ 2. Ditto.

Act V. „ 1. Shakespeare.

„ 2. Fletcher.

„ 3. Ditto.

„ 4. Ditto.
Prologue & Epilogue Ditto.

So far all is clear ; and in this apportionment Mr Urban's cor
respondent and myself are agreed. My conviction here is as com
plete as it is of my own identity. But beyond, at present, all is dark;
I cannot understand the arrangement ; and I doubt if my friend
who has treated the question with so much ability, is altogether
satisfied with his own explanation.

20* MR SPEDDING ON HENRY VIII, CONFIRMED BY MR IIICKSON.

In the mean while, I would suggest one or two points for con
sideration. In those parts which I have set down as Shakspeare's,
and in which this writer imagines he occasionally detects " a third
hand," does the metre differ materially from Shakspeare's early
plays 1

It will be observed that in Act iii. Scene 2, there are two
" farewells," the second being a kind of amplification of the first ;
both, however, being in the part which I ascribe to Fletcher. Is
it not probable that these were written at different periods ? And
supposing Fletcher to have improved his part, might there not origin
ally have been a stronger analogy than now appears between this
play and the " Two Noble Kinsmen " 1

The more it is tested, the brighter shines "out the character of
Shakspeare. The flatteries of James and Elizabeth may now go
packing together. The following four lines which I have met
with in no other edition of Shakspeare than Mr Collier's, are
worth any of his plays for their personal value ; they show how
he could evade a compliment with the enunciation of a general
truth that yet could be taken as a compliment by the person for
whom it was intended.

" Shakspeare on the King.

" Crowns have their compass ; length of days their date ;
Triumphs, their tomb ; felicity her fate ;
Of nought but earth can earth make us partaker,
But knowledge makes a king most like his Maker."

SAMUEL HICKSON,
12, 1850.

These lines (with two differences and one great improvement)
are engraved under Simon Passe's print of James sitting on his
throne ; which formed the frontispiece to the collection of his works,
printed in 1616. Whoever wrote them ought to have the credit of
the true reading of the third line :

Crounes haue their compasse, length of dayes their date,
Triumphes their tombes, felicitie her fate :
Of more then earth, can earth make none partaker,
But knowledge makes the KING most like his maker.

JAMES SPEDDINS.
April 11, 1874.

MR SPEDDING'S FURTHER REMARKS ON HEKRY vm. 21*

MR SPEDDING'S LETTER
from the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 34, p. 381, Oct. 1850.

" I WAS much gratified, though not at all surprised to find, by a
letter from Mr Samuel Hickson to the editor of Notes and Queries
(No. 43, p. 198), that the question < Who wrote Henry VIII. V had
already engaged that gentleman's attention, and that he had come to
the same conclusion with myself as to the parts which were written

by Fletcher The exactness of the coincidence should surprise

those who doubt the correctness of the conclusion ; for the inquiries
were certainly quite independent and unknown to each other. The
resemblance of the style, in some parts of the play, to Fletcher's, was
pointed out to me several years ago by Alfred Tennyson (for I do
not know why I should not mention his name) ; and long before that
the general distinctions between Shakspere's manner and Fletcher's
had been admirably explained by Charles Lamb in his note on the
Two Noble Kinsmen, and by Mr Spalding in his Essay.1 And in
respect to this I had myself received additional light, more perhaps
than I am aware of, from Mr Hickson himself, if he be (as I sup
pose he is) the S. H. of the Westminster Review [see the next Paper].
But, having been thus put upon the scent, and furnished with

1 It will be seen by the following extract from Mr Emerson's Represent
ative Men, for which we are indebted to our correspondent A. E., that the
subject had attracted the attention of that distinguished writer : —

" In Henry VIII. I think I see plainly the cropping out of the original
rock on which his (Shakspeare's) own finer stratum was laid. The first play
was written by a superior, thoughtful man, with a vicious ear, I can mark his
lines, and know well their cadence. See Wolsey's Soliloquy, and the following
scene with Cromwell, where, instead of the metre of Shakspeare, whose secret
is that the thought constructs the tune, so that reading for the sense will best
bring out the rhythm ; here the lines are constructed on a given tune, and the
verse has even a trace of pulpit eloquence. But the play contains, through all
its length, unmistakeable traits of Shakspeare's hand ; and some passages, as
the account of the coronation, are like autographs. What is odd, the compli
ment to Queen Elizabeth is in the bad rhythm." I Notes and Queries, ii.
307, Oct. 12, 1850.

22* MR SrEDDING's FURTHER REMARKS ON HENRY VIII.

principles, I followed the inquiry out by myself, without help or
communication. That two independent inquirers should thus have
arrived at the same conclusions upon so many particulars, must cer
tainly be considered very singular, except upon one supposition, viz.
that the conclusions are according to reason. Upon that supposition,
nothing is more natural ; and I must confess, for my own part, that
I should have been more surprised if the coincidence had been less
exact.

" I speak here only of the apportionment to Shakespeare and
Fletcher of their several parts. Upon the question how the play
was actually got up, and came to be what it is, I should hardly
expect two persons to think alike, far less two independent investi
gations to coincide in the same solution. . . . The explanation which
I have suggested ... I merely offer ... as the best I can think of. ...

JAMES SPEDDING."
Utk Sept., 1850.

Prof. Karl Elze, in his Paper Zu Heinricli VIII. in the current
German Shakspere Jahrbuch, thinks the play was written by Shak-
spere in 1603, for the 70th Anniversary of Anne Boleyn's marriage,
was set aside on account of Elizabeth's death, and kept there till
Eowley brought out his " Wlien you Ser Me you Know Me; or,
the famous Chronicle Historie of King Henrie the Eight1," in 1613.
The Globe Company thereupon thought of their unused Henry
VIII. , put it into Fletcher's hands to alter, and then acted it. This
view is inconsistent with Mr Spedding's proof of the late date of
Shakspere's part of the Play. — F.

1 Prof. Elze's edition of this Play, with a full Introduction, will be publisht
soon by Messrs Williams and Norgate.

A FRESH CONFIRMATION OF MR SPEDDING'S DIVI
SION AND DATE OF THE PLAY OF HENRY VIII.

BY THE REV. F. G. FLEAY.

IN order to determine the question of the date of the Shakspere
part of this play, so as to settle the difference between Mr Spedding
and Professor Elze, I have subjected the Shakspere and Fletcher
portions to metrical tests : with the following results : —

Shakspere. Fletcher.

Total number of lines 1146 1467

Number of rhyme lines' 6 10

„ short lines 19 27

„ ,, Alexandrines 23 8

„ „ double endings 380 863

Proportion of double endings to blank verse 1:3 1:1-7

It is manifest that Mr Spedding is right, and Professor Elze
wrong. The rhyme-test here, as always, is decisive ; in the Shak-
epere part there are only six rhyme lines, and these rhymes all three
accidental. The date of the Shakspere work is thus determined as
the very latest — as late, at least, as the Tempest and Winter's Tale, as
Mr Spedding says. All the other metrical peculiarities agree with
this. I regret that a mis-reading of my table (through carelessness
on my part, due to working too hurriedly) led me to allow Henry
VIII. to have the date 1603 attached to it in the first proof of my
paper on Metrical Tests : it is true that I felt doubt enough then to
put a (?) against it.

It will also be seen in my paper on Beaumont, Fletcher, and
Massinger, that Fletcher did not work in conjunction with other
authors than Beaumont till 1613. The only exception apparent is
The Two Noble Kinsmen ; but although the Shakspere part of this
play was earlier than 1613 there is no reason to believe that the
Fletcher part is. This gives another instance of the consistency
obtained in all our theories by careful application of the rhyme-test.

F. G. FLEAY.

24*

ANOTHER FRESH CONFIRMATION OF MR SPEDDING'S
DIVISION AND DATE OF THE PLAY OF HENRY VIII

BY F. J. FURNIVALL, ESQ., M.A.

THOUGH Mr Spedding's able analysis of Henry VIII — being made
by the highest and soundest test, the taste of a highly cultivated
man trained in criticism, — needs no confirmation by lower tests, yet
as I have applied the stopt-line test to the Play, I give its results
here. They justify Mr Spedding's conclusions, both as to his divi
sion between Shakspere and Fletcher, and as to his date for the
Play. They also show how wrong those of us were, who, before we
had studied Mr Spedding's article, thought that Henry F///must have
been written in Elizabeth's lifetime, because it praised her so, and
was then recast after her death ; the compliment to King James
being inserted in Cranmer's last speech when the Play was acted (as
was supposed) before Elizabeth's successor.

SHAKSPERE.

FLETCHER.

Verse-lines. Unstopt.

Proportion.

Verse-lines.

Unstopt.

Proportion

i. 1,

226 123

1 to 1-83

2,

214 115

1-86

i. 3,

67

18

1 to 3-72

4,

107

27

3-96

ii. 1,

169

57

2-96

2,

134

39

3-43

ii. 3,

107 45

2-37

4,

241 113

2-13

iii. 1,

1721

36

4-83

iii. 2,

202i 101

2-

2,

257J

75

3-43

iv. 1,

117

39

3-

2,

173

38

4-55

v. 1,

178 78

2-28

v. 2,

35

7

5-

" -a

Total

1168£ 575

1 to 2 -03

3,

178

40

4-45

.

4,

41

8

5-01

5,

77

12

6-41

1527i

396

1 to 3-85

Epil

14

5

2-8

Prol.

32

14

2-28

Total

1573J

415

3-79

If the stopt-line test is a certain one — I don't assert that it is —
Shakspere's part of Henry VIII is a little later than Winter's Tale,
as, 1 to 2 '03 is a little more than 1 to 2*12, the proportion given for
Winter's Tale in my Prospectus for The Neiv Shcikspere Society.
1 Without the song.

25*

2. THE SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER IN
THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN, by the late S. HICKSON,
Esq.,1 with a Confirmation by the REV. F. G. FLEAY, M.A.

WE need not apologize for introducing a subject, which has
engaged the attention of Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, Hallam, and other
both earlier and later writers, — not to mention German critics, whom
we have good reasons for considering incompetent, — but which still
remains an undecided question. If the addition of one more to the
plays of Shakspere — in the words of Mr Hallam, " the greatest name
in all literature," — could for a moment be considered unimportant, it
has at least been regarded by high authorities as an interesting point
in literary history ; and the interest remains undiminished at the
present day. The subject to which we allude, and propose to discuss,
is the authorship of the Two Noble Kinsmen, a play included, both
by Mr Knight and Mr Dyce, in their editions of Shakspere and
Beaumont and Ftetcher.

It was first published in the year 1634, with the following title :
"The Two Nolle Kinsmen; presented at the Blackfriars, by the
Kings Maiesties Servants, with great applause. Written by the
memorable worthies of their time; Mr John Fletcher, and Mr
William Shakspeare, Gent." We have to inquire — Whether the
statement contained in this title-page be true 1 and if so, what parts
of the play were written by Shakspere ] We may here remark that
this is all the external evidence that exists, unless we accept a stage
tradition, that the first act was the work of Shakspere. Mr Spalding,
to whom the ' Letter on Shakspeare'a authorship of the Two Noble

1 This originally appeared as Art. IV. in the Westminster and Foreign
Quarterly Review, No. XCII., and No. LXXVII. for April 1847, p. 59—88,
reviewing, 1. A Letter on Shakspeare 's Authorship of the Two Noble Kins
men ; a drama commonly ascribed to John Fletcher, 1833. 2. Knight's
Pictorial Edition of Shaltspere, 1841. 3. Dyce's Works of Beaumont and
Fletcher, 1846.

26* SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

Kinsmen ' is attributed,1 and Mr Dyce, answer the first part of this
question in the affirmative. Mr Knight, having a theory of his
own on the subject, says " No." With the opinion of the first-named
gentlemen our own, so far, coincides ; and we shall endeavour to
make our readers understand why ; but we must first settle with
Mr Knight.

The ' Pictorial ' was the first edition of Shakspere that contained
this play. It was considered to belong to the same category as
Titus Andronicus and Pericles; and on its announcement we
regarded Mr Knight as a believer in its authenticity. But Mr. Knight
had discovered a resemblance to certain passages in a play or plays
by Chapman ; and his examination of The Two Noble Kinsmen was
devoted to strengthening an extempore hypothesis.

We have not space to go into his arguments ; and they deserve
less notice from the fact that he has printed the play so carelessly,
that we can only conclude, worshipper of Shakspere as he is, that he
prejudged the question. We doubt, however, whether he has made
a single convert to his theory ; and it only claims consideration from
its coming from so respectable a quarter. Yet, should any of our
readers be inclined to pursue Mr Knight's comparison for themselves,
let us advise them not to take his selected passages, but one of the
plays from which they are taken, Bussy d'Ambois, for instance, and
to compare that with the Two Noble Kinsmen.

On one point all are agreed : — That two writers, of dissimilar and
unequal powers, were engaged in this play there appears to be quite
sufficient internal evidence. In illustration of this we would call
attention to the purely dramatic character of the first scene — a scene
merely suggested by Chaucer, from whom the story of the play is
taken : — Whether we observe the pity of Theseus, giving the first
intimation of irresolution, his struggles against it, the arguments of
the three queens, his expostulation, their appeal to Hypolita and
Emilia, and his final yielding ; or, passing these over, direct our
observation to the nicely-discriminated characters of the three queens
— from the first, with her direct and earnest appeal to Theseus, to
the third, whose petition was —
1 The Preface is signed J. S., and the work is known to be Mr Spalding's. — F.

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 27*

" Set down in ice, which, by hot grief uncandied,
Melts into drops ; so sorrow, wanting form,
Is press'd with deeper matter ; "

From one whose arguments are ever ready to combat every objection,
to her whose sorrow almost chokes her utterance — whose u extremity "
she complains " that sharpens sundry wits " ' ' makes " her " a fool," —
no doubt can remain upon the mind that it is the work of an experi
enced dramatist, of a delineator of character, and that, looking to the
germ that produced it, in point of mere invention it must take a high
rank. But if, with this scene, we contrast another by no means
without its admirers, or undeserving of admiration, we shall find a
marked difference indeed. In the scene to which we now refer, we
find two noble kinsmen, united in the closest bonds of friendship,
proving their triumph over the hard lot that had befallen them by
the consolations of philosophy. They persuade themselves that their
friendship is all in all ; that though they may never know " the sweet
embraces of a loving wife," they are " one another's wife ; " they are
"father, friends, acquaintance;" that, were they at liberty, "a wife
might part," or " quarrels consume," or " a thousand chances would
sever " them. There is something very touching in this description
of their friendship. And when we regard the one chance in the
thousand that actually does sever them, and the dispute between
them that ensues, we feel at once that it is an incident susceptible of
considerable dramatic effect. Yet, with all its beautiful poetry, it
does not exhibit dramatic power. Between the characters of Palamon
and Arcite there is positively no distinction ; and the speeches of one
might be given to the other without the least injury to the plot.
There is, however, a marked distinction between their characters in
the first scene in which they appear, where Palamon is manifestly
the superior. Arcite is anxious to " leave the city, Thebes, and the
temptings in it," before they sully their " gloss of youth." Palamon
has more reliance in himself. If the latter leave Thebes, it will not
be because there " every evil hath a good colour," " every seeming
good's a certain evil ; " — " 'tis in our power," says he, " to be masters
of our manners ; " — " these poor slight sores need not a plantain ; " —

28* SHARES OP SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

and, after an eloquent and indignant protest against the successes of
the tyrant, Creon, when news is brought of the defiance of Theseus,
he pithily and patriotically replies to the qualms of Arcite as to the
justice of their quarrel —

" leave that unreason'd ;
Our services stand now for Thebes, not Creon."

There can be no doubt of the fact, that in the above scenes we
are considering the work of different writers, in which the individu
ality of character drawn by one author was not preserved by the
other. It is further obvious, that the one writer was a delineator of
character, and the other not so. Their differences of style will be
seen in the following extracts. The first is from Act I. Scene 1 : —

•"' 1st Queen. We are three queens whose sovereigns fell before
The wrath of cruel Creon ; who endur'd
The beaks of ravens, talons of the kites,
And pecks of crows, in the foul fields of Thebes.
He will not suffer us to burn their bones,
To urn their ashes, nor to take th' offence
Of mortal loathsomeness from the blest eye
Of holy Phoebus, but infects the winds
With stench of our slain lords. 0, pity, duke,
Thou purger of the earth, draw thy fear'd sword
That does good turns to the world ; give us the bones
Of our dead kings, that we may chapel them ;
And, of thy boundless goodness, take son e note
That for our crowned heads we have no roof,
Save this, which is the lion's and the bear's,
And vault to everything."

[Shakspere.]

We must beg our readers to take particular notice of the structure
of the verse in the following passage (Act II. Scene 2), a si bject to
which we shall have again to draw their attention.

"Arcite. No, Palamon,

Those hopes are prisoners with us ; here we ar3,
And here the graces of our youths must wither,

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 29*

Like a too timely spring : here age must find us,

And, which is heaviest, Palamon, unmarried.

The sweet embraces of a loving wife,

Laden with kisses, arm'd with thousand Cupids,

Shall never clasp our necks ; no issue know us ;

Ko figures of ourselves shall we e'er see,

To glad our age, and, like young eagles, teach 'em

Boldly to gaze against bright arms, and say

Remember what your fathers were, and conquer."

[Fletcher.]

Thus much of the general argument. We proceed to the main
inquiry — Shakspere's participation in the work.

"We have said before, that Mr Spalding answers the question of
the authenticity of the title-page, or, rather, of the truth of the
statement contained in it, in the affirmative. With reference to the
remaining question at issue, he comes, after a diligent examination,
to the conclusion, that " the First Act, wholly, — one scene out of
six, in the Third, — and the whole of the Fifth Act, except one un
important scene," are by Shakspere. In this arrangement, it will be
seen that he excludes the whole of the underplot ; a conclusion in
consistent with his belief, that the choice of the subject, and a
preponderating influence on the management of the plot, was Shak
spere's. We say, inconsistent with this belief; because, this view
being correct, it is incredible that Shakspere should have left the
underplot, presenting some of the greatest difficulties, entirely to his
associate. Mr Spalding, it appears to us, has been misled by the
apparent simplicity of the case ; and the source of his error would
seem to lie in assuming, that as, undoubtedly, the greater part of
the underplot was by the inferior writer, the whole thereof was
written by the same hand. But there is a convenient looseness in
his views altogether with regard to Fletcher. And not merely this
writer's portion, but the age at which he wrote, is a circumstance of
greater importance than would appear at a first glance. Mr Dyce
adopts Mr Spalding's view of the division of the work, but not of
the circumstances of its production. The latter gentleman considers
it was written in conjunction ; but, if we understand Mr Dyce's

30* SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

theory, it is, that Shakspere took a play, called Palamon and Arcite,
mentioned by Henslow in 1594, and altered it; and that Fletcher,
many years after, took the work so altered by Shakspere, and altered
that : so that it would appear to be in the condition of the fowling-
piece that was repaired, first by the addition of a new lock, and then a
new stock, and, lastly, a new barrel. For our own parts, we cannot
see where speculation is to end, if Mr Dyce be allowed to argue
upon a hypothetical play, which, so far as we know, never existed. In
Henslow's diary we find the following entry : "17 of September,
1594, ne Ed at palamon and arsett Ijs;" we have the Two Noble
Kinsmen before us : and there is not a tittle of evidence besides.

Setting aside, for the present, this guessing, for we look upon
it as little better, the first thing that seems to indicate the presence
of the mind of Shakspere, is the clearness with which, in the first
scene, we are put in possession of the exact state of affairs at the
opening of the play, without any circumlocution, or long-winded
harangues, but naturally and dramatically. And, indeed, one of the
most striking characteristics of Shakspere is, if we may so express it,
the downright honesty of his genius, that disdains anything like
trick or mystery. This is almost peculiar to Shakspere. Where, in
his works, as much is revealed in the very opening as is necessary
to the understanding of the plot, we find, in the works of other
dramatists, as much kept back as possible : and we are continually
greeted with some surprise, or startled with some unexpected turn
in the conduct of the piece. Throughout the entire range of the
plays of Shakspere, there is not a single instance of a character
turning up, in the unravelling of the plot, whose existence was
not, at least, implied, and whose appearance might not reasonably be
looked for.

We would next call attention to a certain boldness of metaphor,
carried sometimes to that extreme that it requires a considerable
effort of the understanding to follow it. The following lines, taken
from Act I. Scene 1, are selected, not for their excellence, but to
illustrate the foregoing remark : —

" And that work now presents itself to the doing
Now 'twill take form, the heats are gone to-morrow ;

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 31*

Then bootless toil must recompence itself
With its own sweat. Now, he's secure,
Nor dreams we stand before your puissance,
Rinsing our holy begging in our eyes
To make petition clear."

" Dowagers, take hands ;
Let us be widows to our woes. Delay
Commends us to a famishing hope."
" We come unseasonably ; but when could grief
Cull forth, as unpang'd judgment can, fit'st time
For best solicitation ? "

There is nothing more strikingly marked in the writings of
Shakspere, than his habit of giving utterance, through his chief
characters, to philosophical reflections, suggested by the situations
and circumstances of the drama. Instances readily present them
selves in the soliloquies of Hamlet and Henry the Fifth ; and the
same habit is perceptible in such portions of this play as are now
under consideration. Take, for example, the words of Palamon
(Act I. Scene 2), beginning —

" 'Tis in our power

(Unless we fear that apes can tutor 's) to
Be masters of our manners."

Or the speech of Theseus (Act I. Scene 4), beginning,
" Then like men use 'em."

Can any one doubt that, a little farther on, he reads with Shak
spere 1

" Bear 'em speedily

From our kind air, (to them unkind) and minister
What man to man may do ; for our sake, more.
Since I have known frights, fury, friends' behests,
Love's provocations, zeal, a mistress' task,
Desire of liberty, a fever, madness,
Sickness in will, or wrestling strength in reason

32* SHARES OP SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

Have set a mark which nature could not reach to

Without some imposition."

And this instance leads to a remark, obvious enough, on a cer
tain cataloguing of circumstances altogether peculiar to Shakspere.
It would be easy to multiply evidences of this habit from the Two
Noble Kinsmen ; but the passage last quoted will be sufficient to
compare with the two following passages from Shakspere. The first
is from Hamlet : —

" For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin ] "

The second from Troilus and Cressida :

" 0, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was ;
For beauty, wit,

High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subject all
To envious and calumniating time."

Mere coincidences of sentiment would, alone, have little value
as proofs of the identity of the writer ; but the following instance
we think as strong as its kind will admit. In Act V. Scene 1,
Palamon says —

" I never at great feasts
Sought to betray a beauty, but have blush'd
At simpering sirs that did : I have been harsh
To large confessors, and have hotly asked them
If they had mothers ; I had one, a woman,
And women 'twere they wrong'd."

In Troilus and Cressida, Act V. Scene 2, Troilus says,

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 33*

" Let it not be believ'd for womanhood !
Think, we had mothers ; do not give advantage
To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme,
For depravation, to square the general sex
By Cressid's rule : rather think this not Cressid."

Each of these passages is so original ; each has so little the air
of being an imitation of the other ; and they are both so character
istic of Shakspere, that we cannot hesitate to ascribe them to him.
Lady Macbeth calls for darkness to conceal a murder, Emilia
invokes it to prevent one. The following portion of the dialogue is
worth extracting : —

" TJieseus. — You must be there :

The trial is, as 'twere, i' th' night, and you

The only star to shine.
Emilia. — I am extinct :

There is but envy in that light which shows

The one the other : darkness, which ever was

The dam of horror, who does stand accurst

Of many mortal millions, may, even now,

By casting her black mantle over both,

That neither could find other, get herself

Some part of a good name, and many a murder

Set off, whereto she's guilty."

There are other passages that strikingly illustrate this view of
the similarity of language and sentiment to Shakspere, which we
pass over now, as we shall have to refer to them in another branch
of the inquiry.

We come now to the measure of the verse. Of all writers of
blank verse, Shakspere is the most musical. His verses flow into
each other with the most perfect harmony ; never monotonous, but
seldom rugged. His words seem rather to fall naturally into verse,
than to be measured out into lines ; and his varied pauses break,
without disjoining, the longest passages, so that none can be said to
be lon<y-winded, nor to add to their untiring effect. But Shakspere,

TRANSACTIONS. 3*

34* SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

without feeling them a restraint, is always attentive to the laws of
metre ; he uses redundant syllables very sparely ; and even the
common licence of double endings he resorts to but occasionally.
On the other hand, the measure of Fletcher's verse is extremely
peculiar : double and triple endings, and redundant syllables, may
be said to form the character of his system ; so much so that the
line is frequently eked out with an expletive, after the verse is
complete. The result of this is, that what was introduced for
the sake of variety, and which has that effect when Shakspere uses
it, in Fletcher becomes excessively monotonous, giving something of
a sing-song effect. As a specimen of this style we take a passage from
the Elder Brother : —

" Charles. — Old men are not immortal, as I take it.
Is it you look for youth and handsomeness]
I do confess my brother's a handsome gentleman ;
But he shall give, me leave to lead the way, lady.
Can you love for love, and make that the reward 1
The old man shall not love his heaps of gold
With a more doting superstition,
Than I'll love you ; the young man his delights ;
The merchant when he ploughs the angry sea up,
And sees the mountain-billows falling on him,
As if all elements, and all their angers,
Were twin'd into one vow'd destruction,
Shall not with greater joy embrace his safety.
We'll live together like two wanton vines,
Circling our souls and loves in one another ;
We'll spring together, and we'll bear one fruit ;
One joy shall make us smile and one grief mourn,
One age go with us, and one hour of death
Shall close our eyes, and one grave make us happy."

If we compare the concluding lines of this passage with the
following from the play before us, we shall at once see the identity
of the writer : —

" The fair-eyed maids shall weep our banishments,

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 35*

\

And in their songs, curse ever-blinded fortune,
Till she, for shame, see what a wrong she has done
To youth and nature ; this is all our world ;
We shall know nothing here but one another,
Hear nothing but the clock that tells our woes :
The vine shall grow, but we shall never see it ;
Summer shall come, and with her all delights,
But dead cold winter must inhabit here, still."

It may not be out of place to observe here the looseness of
structure, and want of logical connection, in both these extracts ;
both may be said to be pretty poetry rather than true. All this
is very different to Shakspere. He never pauses upon a super
abundant syllable, and should the verse end with one, he runs it
into the next. As a contrast to Fletcher's style, let us take the
following : —

" Pal. — Hail, sovereign queen of secrets, who has power
To call the fiercest tyrant from his rage,
And weep unto a girl ; that hast the might,
Even with an eye-glance, to choke Mars's drum,
And turn the alarm to whispers ; that canst make
A cripple flourish with his crutch, and cure him
Before Apollo ; that mayst force the king
To be his subject's vassal, and induce
Stale gravity to dance. The polled bachelor,
Whose youth, like wanton boys, through bonfires,
Has skipt thy flame, at seventy, thou can'st catch,
And make him, to the scorn of his hoarse throat,
Abuse young lays of love."

Thus far have we gone along with Mr Spalding and Mr Dyce ;
but here we must part company, and pursue our road independently.
Our present business is to examine the scenes of this play in their
order and connection with each other, and to apply the various
tests of style which we have indicated. We have already stated
our opinion that the first scene is by Shakspere. There appears, we

3f>* SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

confess, a difficulty in the second scene which makes necessary a
closer examination. The first speech of Arcite reads, certainly, very
unlike Shakspere's versification, nor does it bear the impress of his
thought; it might be described as rather common-place metaphor,
expressed in metrical prose. The speech of Palamon that follows
is very different : —

" What strange ruins,

Since first we went to school, may we perceive
Walking in Thebes ? Scars, and bare weeds,
The gain o' th' martialist, who did propound
To his bold ends, honor, and golden ingots,
Which, though he won, he had not."

The next half-dozen lines given to Arcite might pass for Shak
spere's in a play acknowledged to be his. When Arcite again speaks
he goes on, —

"I spoke of Thebes,

How dangerous, if we will keep our honors,
It is for our residing ; where every evil
Hath a good colour ; where every seeming good's
A certain evil ; where not to be even jump
As they are, here were to be strangers, and
Such things, to be mere monsters."

This seems to us, as in the first instance, neither poetry nor
music. On the other hand, the whole of the part of Palamon in
this scene is of the same quality as the instance above given, and
even more strikingly characteristic of Shakspere. Palamon is in a
marked degree the superior of the two cousins ; he has a strong will
and an original understanding ; whereas a string of negatives will
give the character of Arcite. There appears to us, in this, something
more than the mere difference of character ; the one has a character,
the other has none. And this, added to the difference we perceive
in the measure and diction, leads us to a conclusion that possibly
the reader may have anticipated. We think that either Shakspere
and Fletcher wrote the scene in conjunction, or that it was originally
written by Fletcher, and afterwards revised and partially re-written

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 37*

by Shakspere. From the entrance of Valerius, however, it appears
to be entirely by the latter. There is one other trifling point con
nected with this scene. It is a common thing for Fletcher to use
in the plural certain nouns of quality or circumstance commonly
used in the singular ; and, in the present instance, Arcite uses the
expression " our honors," precisely in the same way as in Act II.
Scene 2, he says, —

" The fair-eyed maids shall weep our banishments."
We feel confident, that, in both these instances, Shakspere would
have used the singular number.

Of the third scene it will be sufficient to say, that .in its intro
duction is manifest the judgment of Shakspere. Like another,
which we shall hereafter have occasion to mention, it shows the
precise line of distinction, in one particular, between him and an
ordinary writer. The friendship of Theseus and Perithous becomes
a natural introduction to the subject of friendship in general, and
female friendship in particular ; and, in this light, the character of
Emilia is shown so simple, so pure, yet so fervent, that we justify
and account for her irresolution, and inability to decide between
two rivals, both of whom she admires, without actually loving either.
It is a scene, in fact, necessary to that perfection of character, and
consistency of purpose, which but one writer of the age attained.
Struck out, the play would still be intelligible, as no part of the
action would thereby be lost. But Emilia would straightway sink
into one of those conventional characters that strange circumstances
throw into the power of the dramatist ; and, judged by any other than
his own peculiar standard, would certainly have little claim upon
our respect. The fourth scene, in which Theseus returns victor,
bears the mark of Shakspere's hand too strongly to be mistaken.
The internal evidence in the fifth scene, which is a dirge, is not so
strong ; it is the only scene throughout the entire play with regard
to which we entertain doubt ; but we incline to the belief that it is v
by Shakspere. The concluding couplet is probably better known
than the source from whence it sprung ; —

" Zrd Queen. — This world's a city, full of straying streets,

And Death's the market-place where each one meets."

38* SHARES OF SliAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

In the Second Act the first scene introduces to us the jailor, to
whom is committed the charge of Palamon and Arcite, taken prison
ers by Theseus, — his daughter, and the wooer of the latter. Some
such invention as these characters was necessary to the escape of
Palamon. And here we join issue with Mr Spalding ; it being our
settled conviction that this scene was written by Shakspere. It is
much to be regretted that Coleridge, who has expressed a similar
opinion, should not have gone more fully into the subject ; but his
authority will still weigh with some : and we will endeavour to
explain our own reasons for agreeing with by far the best poetical
critic of our time. In the first place, this scene is in prose ; and
although Shakspere frequently writes long scenes of this kind in prose,
Fletcher seldom or never does so. In the next place, one of the
strongest reasons of attributing the whole of the underplot to Fletcher
is its grossness. Now, there is not a single gross word, or gross thought,
in the whole scene [sc. 1, Act ii.] ; and, indeed, nothing can be more
delicately managed. Moreover, it seems certain that this scene could
not have been written by the writer of the following one, which is
allowed by all to be by Fletcher : for, although, in the first scene, the
jailor's daughter says, distinctly enough, — " They have no more sense
of their captivity than I of ruling Athens ; they eat well, look merrily,
discourse of many things, but nothing of their own restraint and
disasters ; " in the second scene, they are represented as the reverse
of all this, and discoursing of nothing but "their own restraint and
disasters." The arrangement of the scene is Shakspere's : it is quite
in his manner to commence, as it does, in the very middle of the
conversation between the jailor and his daughter's suitor. Shak
spere never gives us occasion to say, with Sneer in 'The Critic,'
" How came he not to ask that question before 1 " In the following
scene by Fletcher, when the two cousins begin by asking each othei
how they do, Sneer's question does rise to our lips. The style of
composition is quite of the same character as we find in such plays
as the Winter's Tale, where prose is used in scenes of a serious nature.
We extract a part of this scene to compare with an extract from the
Winier's Tale ; at the same time it will serve to show the character
of the observations of the jailor's daughter.

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 39*

" Jailor. — I heard them reported, in the battle, to be the only
doers.

" Daughter. — Nay, most likely, for they are noble sufferers. I
marvel how they would have look'd, they had been victors, that,
with such a constant nobility, enforce a freedom out of bondage,
making misery their mirth, and affliction a toy to jest at.

" Jailor. — Do they so 1

" Daughter. — It seems to me, they have no more sense of their
captivity than T of ruling Athens : they eat well, look merrily, dis
course of many things, but nothing of their own restraint or disasters :
yet, sometimes, a divided sigh, martyred as 'twere i' th' deliverance,
will break from one of them ; when the other presently gives it so
sweet a rebuke, that I could wish myself a sigh to be so chid, or at
least a sigher to be comforted."

Compare this with the following from the first scene of the
Winter's Tale, and it will be seen, at least, that if there be not
evidence of the affinity for which we contend, the argument fails that
would so utterly degrade the whole of the underplot.

" Camillo. — Sicilia cannot show himself overkind to Bohemia.
They were trained together in their childhoods; and there rooted
betwixt them, then, such an affection, which cannot choose but branch
now. Since their more mature dignities made separation of their
society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally
attornied, with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies ; that
they have seem'd to be together, though absent; shook hands, as
over a vast ; and embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed
winds. The heavens continue their loves !

"Archidamus. I think there is not in the world, either malice, or
matter, to alter it."

Towards the conclusion of the scene the two kinsmen appear ;
and the jailor points out Arcite, wrongly as it appears, to the wooer.
A characteristic touch of a master hand here occurs, in the eagerness
with which the daughter corrects her father, —

" No, sir, no ; that's Palamon : Arcite is the lower of the twain ; "
and again in her parting reflection, —

" It is a holiday to look on them ; Lord, the difference of men ! '

40* SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

It is hardly necessary to repeat that the prison scene, the second
in this Act, is by Fletcher. Here the two friends first see Emilia.
Arcite is now set free, and banished. He appears in the next scene,
also by Fletcher, and falls in with four country-people, who are going
a-maying. The scene with these latter, though intended to be
humorous, does not exhibit a single spark of wit or humour. The
fourth scene is also by the same hand : it is simply a soliloquy of the
jailor's daughter, who is now in love with Palamon, and determined
to set him at liberty. It is very different in quality, however, to the
scene of her first appearance. Shakspere, for instance, would hardly
have given her the following line : —

" And yet he had a cousin, fair as he, too."

The fact may have been so ; but she was not the person to make the
discovery ; or, her love, in that case, being merely sensual, Palainon
might have remained in prison to the end of his days. The next
scene is also by Fletcher. Arcite having in disguise joined the
games of the country people, is chosen by Theseus to attend on
Emilia. The sixth and last scene of this Act is another soliloquy of
the jailor's daughter; she has now set Palamon at liberty. The
marks of Fletcher's hand are as distinct in this as in the several pre
ceding scenes (all but the first) of this Act.

"With the third Act Shakspere again returns to the work. In the
first scene we find once more the characters of Palamon and Arcite
distinct from each other. They now meet for the first time since
their imprisonment. Palamon, who has not yet got freed from his
fetters, surprises, in a wood, Arcite, who, soliloquizing aloud, declares
his love for Emilia, and thus reproaches him : —

" 0, thou most perfidious
That ever gently look'd : the void'st of honour
That e'er bore gentle token : falsest cousin
That ever blood made kin : call'st thou her thine ?
I'll prove it in my shackles, with these hands,
Void of appointment, that thou liest, and art,
A very thief in love, a chaffy lord

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 41*

Not worth the name of villain ! Had I a sword,
And these house-clogs away ! "

Arcite begins, ( ' Bear cousin Palamon/' but Palamon is in no
humour for smooth language ; he interrupts him immediately with

" Cosener Arcite ! give me language such
As thou hast show'd me feat."

Arcite, however, goes on —

" Not finding in

The circuit of my breast any gross stuff,
To form me like your blazon, holds me to
This gentleness of answer : 'tis your passion
That thus mistakes, the which, to you being enemy,
Cannot to me be kind. Honour and honesty
I cherish, and depend on ; howsoe'er
You skip them in me \ and with them, fair Coz,
I'll maintain my proceedings. Pray be pleas'd
To show in generous terms your griefs, since that
Your question 's with your equal, who professes
To clear his own way with the mind and sword
Of a true gentleman."

Palamon retorts, " That thou durst, Arcite ! " but his cousin
breaks out at this taunt,

" My coz, my coz, you have been well advertised
How much I dare. * * * Sure of another
You would not have me doubted, but your silence
Should break out, though i' th' sanctuary."

This reliance was worthy of their former friendship ; and Pala
mon, who finds him a generous, though perhaps. not a magnani
mous rival, subsequently exclaims, —

u Oh, you heavens ! dare any
So noble, bear a guilty business 1 None
But only Arcite ; therefore none but Arcite
In this kind is so bold."

42* SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

Another writer, aiming at diversity of character, would, in all
probability, have been satisfied by the broad division between in
dignant anger on the one side, and a cool contemptuous self-pos
session on the other. Fletcher's art, as evinced by his execution
of other parts of this play, was certainly not equal to more ; and
it is in going beyond this that Shakspere's characters present them
selves as individual inhabitants of this world, as living men and
women.

We pass to another scene, which Mr Spalding gives to Fletcher,
simply because, as it appears to us, he assumed the whole of the
underplot to be by one writer. As the scene is short, and con
sists of one soliloquy ; we give it entire.

ACT III. SCENE 2. Enter Jailor's Daughter alone.

" Daughter. — He has mistook the beck I meant ; is gone
After his fancy. 'Tis now well nigh morning :
No matter : would it were perpetual night,
And darkness lord o' th' world. Hark, 'tis a wolf !
In me hath grief slain fear ; and, but for one thing,
I care for nothing, and that's Palamon.
/ reck not if the wolves would jaw me, so
He had this file. "What if I haUoo'd for him 1
I cannot halloo : if I whoop'd, what then ?
If he not answer'd, I should call a wolf,
And do him but that service. I have heard
Strange howls this livelong night : why may't not be
They have made prey of him 1 He has no weapons ;
He cannot run ; the jingling of his gyves
Might call fell things to listen, wlio have in them
A sense to know a man unarmed, and can
Smell where resistance is. I'll set it down
He's torn to pieces ; they howl'd many together,
And then they fed on him. So much for that :
Be bold to ring the bell. How stand I then 1
All's char'd when he is gone. No, no, I lie.
My father's to be hanged for his escape ;

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 43*

Myself to beg, if I priz'd life so much

As to deny my act ; but that I would not,

Should I try death by dozens. I am mop'd ;

Food took I none these two days, —

Sipt some water : I have not closed mine eyes

Save when my lids scour'd off their brine. Alas,

Dissolve my life ! Let not my sense unsettle,

Lest I should droivn, or stab, or hang myself.

0, state of nature, fail together in me,

Since thy best props are warp'd I So, which way, now 1

The best way is the next way to a grave :

Each errant step, beside, is torment. Lo,

The moon is down, the crickets chirp, the screech owl

Calls in the dawn ; all offices are done

Save what I fail in : but the point is this ; —

An end, and that is all." [Exit.

It is to this scene that we referred by anticipation, as giving
an instanc3 of Shakspere's judgment. It can hardly be said to
explain any necessary circumstance of the play ; and so many scenes
in which this character appears alone, are rather injurious to the
action : but it supplies the due gradation between a mind diseased
and madness; and in connection with another scene at which we
shall shortly arrive, it displays a depth of insight into the psy
chological character of this state only excelled by Shakspere him
self, in King Lear. Let our readers observe in particular the
passages we have maiked in italics — the unselfish anxiety of the
jailor's daughter for Palimon's safety, and her subsequent terror
at her own disordered sanses. The introduction of the popular
notion that wild baasts have a a sense to know a man unarm'd "
is quite a Shaksperim illustration ; and we do not know an instance
of finer drawing than this of her imagination painting, as absolute
reality, the subject of her first ferr. From this conviction (of Pala-
mon's death) we come naturally to the concluding lines, beyond which
the next step is madness. Should any of our readers incline to dis
sent from the view we have been taking, we must beg them to re-

44* SHARES OF SHAKSPEEB AND FLETCHER

serve their judgment until we are able to take a synthetical view of
these scenes of the underplot, and to show the inconsistencies that
beset any other conclusion.

The third scene, without any doubt, is by Fletcher. Arcite
brings " food and files " to Palamon ; and, after some patter of early
reminiscences between them utterly out of character, they separate.
The fourth scene introduces the jailor's daughter again : she is now
mad. She fancies she sees a ship, and there is some affectation of
nautical language, (why, Heaven only knows) ; and the rest is mere
incoherent nonsense. Now, though this last, indeed, may be the fre
quent birth of madness (or rather so seeming, in default of being able
to follow the infinitely fine associating links), it can have no place in
poetry, which, whatever it may be, is certainly not a literal tran
script of common things in their common aspects. In a subsequent
scene we shall find the speeches given to this character full of
meaning; the present bears every mark of the hand of Fletcher.
So does the next, whatever fault we may find with the execution,
which, is inferior to anything else we have met with by that writer.
The persons, in the first instance, are the country people whom
we have met before — "two or three wenches," and a terrible dull
pedantic schoolmaster, a most spiritless imitation of Holofernes :
these are afterwards joined by the jailor's daughter ; and Theseus
and his company appearing on the scene, are desired by the school
master to " stay and edify ! " though we fear he received as little
instruction as amusement. The next scene is also by Fletcher,
but of a much higher character than either of the preceding. Pala
mon and Arcite meeting to decide their difference by arms, are in
terrupted by Theseus, who finally decrees that they shall go home
and return within a month ; and that, in the contest then appointed,
the winner shall have the lady, and the loser lose his head.

The first scene of the fourth Act (by Fletcher again) contains a
piece of description which has principally given rise to the notion
that the jailor's daughter is a copy of Ophelia. It is a misfortune
that when a notion once becomes, as it were, stereotyped, thence
forward it stands as a bar to all inquiry. It is marvellous what a
number of errors pass current through the world, when a reference to

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 45*

the original authority would show on how slight a foundation they
rested. In the present instance the fact is, that allowing for their
both being females, and both unsettled in their senses, no two charac
ters can be drawn more distinctly different than the jailor's daughter
and Ophelia. To prove this we must turn back to the first scene in
which the former appears. Entirely absorbed in contemplation of
Palamon ; though, with a natural reserve, speaking of both the
prisoners ; a comparison she makes between them and her pretendu,
shows the current of her feelings, —

" Lord, the difference of men ! "

At her next appearance, she, with a detail of the circumstances
of her situation as daughter to the " keeper of his prison," avows in
soliloquy her love for Palamon, and her determination to release
him, in order that " this night or to-morrow he shall love " her. As
we proceed farther, we find that she has set him at liberty, but has
some misgivings as to whether he will return her love. She con
cludes this scene with

" Farewell, father,

Get many more such prisoners and such daughters,
And shortly you may keep yourself. Now to him."

We next meet with her in despair at having missed Palamon at
the place she had appointed to meet him ; conjuring up all kinds of
fancies, and finally in terror lest her mind should sink under the
weight of anguish and apprehension which oppressed it. This scene
we have already given at pp. 42*, 43*. What she feared has become
a reality when she appears again ; and at this point we come to the
description in the scene before us. Now, in all that has passed, our
readers will see, that not only the circumstances, but the springs of
action, are different from those of Ophelia ; and we beg to assure
such as may not have examined the question for themselves, that the
language and sentiments are still more unlike. But the description
in this scene has a certain resemblance to the circumstances of the
death of Ophelia, and was probably written with that scene in view.
It has no reference whatever to the character of the jailor's daughter ;
and it is the only circumstance in the whole play common to her and

46* SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

to Ophelia. She afterwards appears upon the stage, following up her
nautical fancy, in which she is humoured by her friends

In the second scene Emilia enters alone, with two pictures. This
is Fletcher's masterpiece ; but here is a much stronger case of
imitation than in the jailor's daughter. Hamlet, too, in a celebrated
scene, fixes his and our attention on two pictures. Pointing to one,
he says,

" See what a grace was seated on Ms brow :

Hyperion's curls ; the front of Jove himself;

An eye like Mars to threaten and command ;

A station like the herald Mercury

New 'lighted on a heaven-kissing hill ;

A combination, and a form, indeed,

Where every god did seem to set his seal,

And give the world assurance of a man."

Of this, we think the following an elaborate imitation : we have all
the separate figures, or equivalents to them; only not so happily
applied : for Emilia is not in love with Arcite.

" Here Love himself sits smiling,

Wliat a

Of what a spacious majesty he carries !
Arch'd like the great-eyed Juno's, but far sweeter ;
Smoother than Pelops' shoulder ! Fame and honor
Methinks from hence, as from a promontory
Pointed in heaven, should clap their wings, and sing
To all the under-world, the loves and fights
Of gods, and such men near 'em."

Kef erring to this, Mr Spalding says, that Fletcher repeats him
self, and quotes in proof a passage from Philaster, Act IV.

" Place me, some god upon a Piramis
Higher than hill of earth, and lend a voice
Loud as your thunder to me, that from thence
I may discourse to all the under-world
The worth that dwells in him."

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 47*

Although Mr Spalding cites this merely in proof of the second
scene being by Fletcher, and although, we agree with this conclusion,
we cannot let his remark pass without observing that he here assumes
two things : one, that Philaster was written before the Two Noble
Kinsmen; and the other, that the passage in the former is the
writing of Fletcher. Without the slightest hesitation, we dispute
botli these assumptions. Philaster is one of those plays which were
certainly written by Beaumont and Fletcher ; and the speech from
which the foregoing is extracted, we have as little doubt was by
Beaumont. But this branches into a new inquiry into which we
must not now be tempted, as it would lead us too far a-field.

We have now arrived at the most important scene of the whole
play, — important, not so much with reference to this play, as in its
relation to another that must be ranked as the most wonderful of all
the creations of human genius. The third scene opens with the
jailor giving a doctor an account of his daughter's distemper. He

" She is continually in a harmless distemper ; sleeps little ; alto
gether without appetite, save often drinking ; dreaming of another
world and a better ; and what broken piece of matter soe'er she's
about, the name of Palamon lards it that she farces every business
withal, fits it to every question."

In the midst of this account the daughter enters ; and the opinion
formed of her conduct through this scene, must mainly influence any
decision with regard to the play. We have said before that it is most
absurd to call this character an imitation of Ophelia ; but we should
have been rather surprised, did we not see how external circumstances
are commonly made to pass for character, that the charge had not
been made in reference to King Lear. Between this person and the
jailor's daughter, there is a certain degree of parallelism that alto
gether fails in the other case ; there is a similarity in the language ;
and we see in the latter as in the former, the different gradations
from a " mind diseased " to madness. The relationship between
these two characters it is one part of our business to establish.

We may lay it down as a rule without exception, that a whole
sale plagiarist or imitator will infallibly betray himself by the bad

48* SHARES OF SHAKSPEBE AND FLETCHER

use he makes of his stolen property. By such, a sentiment or illus
tration is more easily kidnapped than the grace of doing it. Aptness
of illustration, truth of sentiment, justness of thought, fitness to the
character using it, all considered in the original, may all be missing
in the theft of such a writer. If all these indications of the imitator
be wanting, we may fairly conclude the passage in question to be
original, notwithstanding any resemblance in thoughts or sentiments
to other works. To illustrate this remark, we take one or two in
stances from this play. In Scene 2 of Act II. Arcite says, —

" Am not I liable to those affections,
Those joys, griefs, angers, fears, my friend shall suffer ? "

This we take to be an imitation of a passage in the Merchant of
Venice —

" Hath not a Jew eyes ? Hath not a Jew hands, organs,
Dimensions, senses, affections, passions ? "

We all know the use made by Shylock of the latter question, whereas
Arcite merely opens what is, in his case, an untenable argument. It
leads to nothing : it is a mere flash in the pan. In another place the
jailor's daughter says, " I know you, you are a tinker." Now this is
utterly meaningless in reference to the character of the person whom
she addresses, — and, indeed, in reference to anything else ; — yet we
understand its introduction from our previous acquaintance with
Hamlet's " you 're a fishmonger ; " the difference being, that the
retort to Polonius is full of meaning. In the same case is the wooer's
account of the finding of the jailor's daughter. The Queen's de
scription of the death of Ophelia is a necessary part of the play ; it
subserves to the catastrophe ; and it may even be said to forward the
action instead of impeding it : on the other hand, the action of the
Two NoUe Kinsmen stands still while the wooer gives a long,
laboured, and perfectly unnecessary description. The scene, how
ever, which we have now under review, is not characterized by any
of these defects ; the language is natural, simple, and suitable ; a
perfect consistency is observed throughout with the characters and
situation of the various persons ; nothing is strained, nothing lugged
in; all has the air of being original We will now take some

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 49*

passages from this scene, begging the reader to bear in mind that
the jailor's daughter is a girl of low degree, who has betrayed her
trust for love of one who has no thought of her : she has abandoned
her friends, and is abandoned by him for whom she left them : " the
world is all before her : " — what is more natural than that she should
be mad 1

" Daughter. Now for this charm that I told you of: you must
bring a piece of silver on the tip of your tongue, or no ferry : then,
if it be your chance to come where the blessed spirits are, there's a
sight, now ; we maids that have our livers perished, cracked to pieces
with love, we shall come there, and do nothing all day long but pick
flowers with Proserpine \ then will I make Palamon a nosegay, then,
let him mark me, — then.

" Doctor. How prettily she's amiss ! Note her a little further.

" Daughter. Faith, I'll tell you ; sometimes we go to Barley-
break, we of the blest : alas, 'tis a sore life they have i' th' other
place. Such burning, frying, boiling, hissing, howling, chattering,
cursing ! 0, they have shreivd measure, take heed : if one be mad, or
hang, or drown themselves, thither they go, Jupiter bless us : and
there shall we be put in a caldron of lead and usurer's grease, amongst
a whole million of cut-purses, and there boil like a gammon of bacon
that will never be enough.

" Doctor. How her brain coines !

" Daughter. Lords and Courtiers, (* ) they are

in this place : they shall stand in fire up to the navel and in ice up to
the heart ; and there the offending part burns, and the deceiving part
freezes ; in troth, a very grievous punishment, as one would think, for
such a trifle : believe me, one would marry a leprous witch to be rid
on 't, Til assure you.

" Doctor. How she continues this fancy ! Tis not an engrafted
madness, but a most thick and profound melancholy."

The allusions here will remind the reader of the following pas
sage in King Lear : —

" Down from the waist they are centaurs, though women all above :
but to the girdle do the gods inherit ; beneath is all the fiend's :
* In the original a qualifying phrase here occurs, very shocking to Mr Knight.

TRANSACTIONS. 4*

50* SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

there's hell, there's darkness, there is the sulphurous pit, burning,
scalding, stench, consumption."

The resemblance of the two quotations is striking, but rather in
style or structure, which go to prove identity of writer, than in either
sentiment or imagery. Comparing the women, who " down from the
waist are centaurs," with the lords and courtiers who stand " in ice
up to the heart," we may perceive that there is not one circumstance
that is common to both images, and that the resemblance is entirely
that of manner. Of the moral purpose of this scene we need hardly
speak : but we must call attention to its peculiar fitness ; the subject
being the punishment awarded to deceit in love, and the indulgence
of ungoverned passions, — both of these acting as causes of the dis
turbed state of mind of the speaker. It would hardly be straining
probability to suppose, that the doctor who attended the jailor's
daughter was afterwards called to King Lear and Lady Macbeth.
His office is purely ministerial, and his purpose is to describe the
state of mind of his respective patients; consequently, if by the
same writer, no difference of character can be looked for. Similar
states of mind, however, call for like expressions. Macbeth, we may
recollect, says —

" Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd? ''

To which the doctor replies —

" Therein the patient
Must minister to himself."

The latter speaks, in another place, of Lady Macbeth's state, as
" A great perturbation in nature ! "

Our doctor says of his patient, in answer to a question from her
father,
" I think she has a perturbed mind, which I cannot minister to.1'

We may observe that he had called her disorder, ' ' not an en
grafted madness, but a most thick and profound melancholy ; " and
he now proceeds to give his advice as to the means of recovering
her, —

" This intemperate surfeit of her eye " — that is, her admiration of
Palamon — "hath distempered the other senses. They may return

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINS M EX. Dl*

and settle again to execute their pre-ordained faculties ; but they are
now in a most extravagant vagary. This you must do," — and, after
instructing the friends that they must endeavour to bring her to
associate the idea of Palamon with all her actions, he proceeds, — "it
is a falsehood she is in, which is with falsehoods to be combated.
This may bring her to eat, to sleep, and reduce what's now out of
square in her, into their former law and regiment. * * I will
between the passages of this project come in with my appliance."

Viewing the similarity of this scene to Shakspere, in style and
language, and its freedom from all the marks of imitation ; consider
ing that particular passages, which may be said to resemble others in
Shakspere, are not so much copies as variations of phrase, and equally
in place ; but, above all, looking at the high moral purpose of the
scene, viewing in it the natural punishment of the principal character
for her ill-governed desires, and the mode she took of gratifying
them ; and yet, moreover, regarding the perfect coherence of the mad
speeches, and their pertinency to the general subject (almost a test
of itself), we have no hesitation in stating our firm conviction that it
is by Shakspere. Will it, however, be believed that all the passages
in our second extract from this scene, which are printed in italics,
and others which we have not given, have been entirely omitted by
Mr Knight 1 He does this under the plea that they are too gross
for publication. In a note to the third scene of the Second Act he
has this remark : " When we open Beaumont and Fletcher's works
we encounter grossnesses entirely of a different nature from those
which occur in Shakspere. They are the result of impure thoughts,
not the accidental reflection of loose manners. They are meant to
be corrupting." We doubt whether the last sentence be true ; in
the rest we cordially agree with Mr Knight. But, we ask, does this
remark apply, in any degree, to the scene before us, which he has
" pruned " for the reason we have quoted ? He has printed, without
a qualm, passages in this play in which the allusions are as gross,
though perhaps more veiled ; only they differ from the present scene
in being unnecessary, immoral, and utterly out of character. Neither
has he thought it necessary to omit anything from Hamlet, King
Lear, Measure for Measure, or other plays of Shakspere, which con-

52* SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

tain passages of greater indelicacy of expression than anything we
have been considering. It is from a not over-squeamish delicacy that
we forbear from giving the passage from King Lear most in point ;
we think it admirable in its place. But we do object to setting, in
the midst of a page of prose, and apart from their natural connection,
expressions, perhaps harmless in themselves, but repudiated by
modern conventionalism. Mr Knight compels us to observe a
different course with the Two Noble Kinsmen which is not so well
known, nor so easily referred to ; and by doing so we enable all our
readers to verify our assertion, that the comparison with either
Hamlet, Act IV. Scene 5, or King Lear, Act IV. Scene 6, is favour
able to this scene. The whole of this reasoning applies equally if
we substitute the name of another writer for that of Shakspere ; the
scene is conceived in a similar spirit to his ; and Mr Knight has
suppressed passages — having no immoral tendency, or unusual inde
licacy of expression — essential to the understanding of the question.
We have devoted more attention to the foregoing scene, and to
Mr Knight's treatment of it, than we otherwise should have done,
had not Mr Dyce expressed his assent to a remark by the former,
that "the underplot, — the love of the jailor's daughter for Palamon,
her agency in his escape from prison, her subsequent madness, and
her unnatural and revolting union with one who is her lover under
these circumstances, — is of a nature not to be conceived by Shak
spere, and, further, not to be tolerated in any work with which he
was concerned." Mr Dyce gives then the whole of the underplot to
Fletcher ; we shall see, presently, how this will fit. But we must
not let the above remark pass without, a word. In " the love of the
jailor's daughter for Palamon, her agency in his escape, and in her
subsequent madness," we certainly see nothing that might not have
been conceived by Shakspere, although some scenes, as we have
shown, could hardly have been executed by him. In the three scenes
of the underplot which we hold to be his, there is not a word of
what Mr Knight stigmatizes as an " unnatural and revolting union ; "
and, indeed, to speak of it as such would be rather premature, did
our knowledge of the circumstances terminate with this scene. But
with this scene we maintain that Shakspere's share in the underplot

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. Do*

ended ; and that which makes the " union " "revolting," is the exe
cution of the next scene in which the same characters appear, with
which we are convinced he had no connection.

To throw a still stronger light upon this subject, we will now
take this scene last referred to (the second scene of the Fifth Act),
which terminates the underplot. We must bear in mind the advice
of the doctor in the former scene ; he tells the wooer to take upon
him the name of Palamon, and to do whatever shall become Palamon,
still aiming to intermingle his petition of grace and acceptance into
her favour; but it could never be imagined from these direptions
that the " union " was to take place under such circumstances. He
says " it is a falsehood she is in, which is with falsehoods to be com
bated ; " and he explains his object, — " this may bring her to eat, to
sleep, and reduce what's now out of square in her into their former
law and regiment." Yet this was not all ; for he continues, " I will,
between the passages of this project, come in with my appliance."
The object sought was her restoration ; and in the last scene of the
Fifth Act, the jailor informs Palamon that his daughter

" is well restor'd,
And shortly to be married."

But, turning to the second scene, we find the doctor saying, in
reference to the wooer's telling him he had " kiss'd her twice,"

" 'Twas well done ; twenty times had been far better;
For there the cure lies mainly."

That insight into the nature of his patient's disorder, displayed in so
remarkable a manner by the doctor in a former scene, in this has left
him ; and his business here seems to be to recommend and nurse up
a sensual idea into an alliance with better feelings. The daughter's
brain still " coins," but the subjects are far-fetched, and have no rela
tion to the speaker's condition or state of mind, nor do they help the
progress of the play. We give one example in which she describes
a horse, probably referring to a celebrated dancing horse, which was
exhibited in London, about 1589 : —

" He dances very finely, very comely ;
And for a jig, come cut and long tail to him,

•> SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

He turns ye like a top.

#####**

He'll dance the Morris twenty mile an hour,
And that will founder the best hobby-horse
(If I have any skill) in all the parish,
And gallops to the tune of ' light o' love : '
What think you of this horse 1 "

We should observe that the former scene is in prose wholly,
while this is in Fletcher's verse ; but, in short, the tone and moral
effect of the two scenes are so different, — the same characters have
so altered an aspect, — the language, sentiments, and allusions are so
unlike, — that the case of any one who can read and deliberately com
pare them, and still believe them to be by the same writer, we must
give over as hopeless.

The three concluding scenes of the Fifth Act, like a stately march
or the procession of a triumph, with all its " pomp, pride, and circum
stance," proceed, without interval or interruption, to the end. The
human agents have become instruments in the hands of the gods, to
whose " divine arbitrament " the event is referred ; an impending
and inevitable fate is visible ;

" The glass is running now that cannot finish
Till one of us expire ; "

and we, the spectators, with the actors, abandon ourselves to

" The sails that must these vessels port even where
The heavenly limiter pleases."

The address of Arcite (Scene 1) to his friends, —
u Knights, kinsmen, lovers,"

is sufficiently remarkable ; but the address to Mars, which follows,
unparalleled as an invocation, is one of the grandest examples of the
application of circumstance to the character of a power that we have
ever met with.

" Thou mighty one, that with thy power hast turn'd

Green Neptune into purple ; whose approach

Comets prewarn ; whose havoc in vast field

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 55*

Unearthed skulls proclaim ; whose breath blows down

The teeming Ceres' foison ; who dost pluck

With hand armipotent from forth blue clouds

The mason'd turrets, that both mak'st and break'st

The stony girths of cities ; me, thy pupil,

Young'st follower of the drum, instruct this day

With military skill, that, to thy land,

I may advance my streamer, and by thee

Be styl'd the lord o' th' day. Give me, great Mars,

Some token of thy pleasure."

*******

0, great corrector of enormous times,
Shaker of o'er rank states, thou grand decider
Of dusty and old titles, that heal'st with blood
The earth when it is sick, and cur'st the world
0' th' pleurisy of people ! I do take
Thy signs auspiciously, and in thy name
To my design march boldly."

Our space will not permit us to pursue the analysis further ;
but enough has been said to illustrate the positions we seek to
establish, and these let us briefly recapitulate. The whole of the
First Act, with the exception of some twenty or thirty lines,
appears to be by Shakspere ; likewise the first scene of the
Second Act ; the first and second scenes of the Third Act ; the
last scene of the Fourth Act ; and, with the exception of the second
scene, the whole of the Fifth Act. As a consequence of this it
follows, that, with the partial exception of Arcite, every character,
even to the doctor who makes his first appearance at the end of the
Fourth Act, was introduced by Shakspere. We have here, then,
not only the framework of the play, but the groundwork of every
character; in each case we find that Shakspere goes first, and
Fletcher follows ; and even then we find that the latter is most suc
cessful in the parts where he had Chaucer for a guide. With regard
to the particular influence of Shakspere upon the underplot, the
same principle appears. The first appearance of the jailor's daughter,

56* SHARES OF SHAKSrEHE AND FLETCHER

with the first signs of her love for Palamon, — the first symptom of
her madness, — and the first opinion given by the doctor, embodying
a discriminating view of the case, with directions for its treatment,
are all by him. Fletcher takes up the following scene to each of
these instances, and unsuccessfully. And, indeed, excepting these
three scenes, and one by Fletcher (the first of the Fourth Act), the rest
of the underplot is trash ; want of observation and inexperience are
evident in it throughout, and it is inconceivably dull. Yet Mr
Dyce would have us believe that this was the production, in his
maturity, of the wittiest writer of his day. Mr Dyce may object,
here, to our representation, urging that his argument applies to
the underplot as a whole, and that it is unfair to select the dullest
portions, as if it applied to them alone. But we do not see that
this would mend the case ; we maintain that the underplot is not
a whole — that it is not homogeneous ; and we find a greater diffi
culty in believing that the fifth scene of the Third Act, and the
third of the Fourth Act, were by the same writer, than even that
the former of these was written by Fletcher in his latter days.
"We have already referred to the marks that distinguish an original
passage from an imitation; we should, however, have said con
scious imitation ; as there is a good deal of unconscious imita
tion of every writer who exercises an influence over his age cur
rent through its literature ; sometimes, indeed, hardly to be
called imitation, even though expressions and phrases may be
literally adopted. In some cases, the originals suggest similar or
parallel trains of thought; in others, the thought of the original
writer is in the first instance adopted, but a different direction is
probably given to it, or it takes a tone or colour from the writer's
mind. But, in all such cases, the materials work well together ;
and there is nothing more heterogeneous in them than if they
were the original property (as far as such a thing can be) of the
writer. Supposing for a moment, that Fletcher could so have
imitated Shakspere in language and manner (which is the most
impossible thing of all), the last scene of the Fourth Act would
furnish the strongest case of imitation. Considering it as such,
the sentiments and allusions are so naturally evolved from the cir-

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 57*

cumstances and situations of the speakers, that any want of origin
ality (if proved) is not disadvantageous to the effect. But, turning
to the fifth scene of the Third Act, the first thing that strikes us is
that there is no purpose in the pedantry of Gerrald; and it appears
evident that it is not only imitation, but the imitation of a young
and inexperienced writer. Fletcher, in his maturity, was not an
imitator of Shakspere, except in the qualified sense we have just
alluded to ; and, supposing he was capable of the dulness of these
inferior portions of the underplot, what should induce him to imitate
Holofernes, one of Shakspere's earliest characters, at a time when
he himself was looked up to as the first living dramatist, is inexplic
able. This unity of the underplot is, we maintain, the post which
our really respected friends have first set up, arid then very diligently
proceeded to run their heads against. It has been assumed as a fact,
without inquiry; for, throughout the labours of Mr Spalding, Mr
Dyce, and Mr Knight, we cannot find any trace of an examination
into the subject. Each of them dismisses it with a sentence or two,
in which, as we have shown, errors of fact, which might easily have
been corrected through inquiry, give us room to suspect equal errors
of judgment. We now proceed to show the effects of this acquies
cence in what we deem a fiction. The last scene of the Fourth Act
contains a passage, which, if not by Shakspere himself, is a mannered
imitation of a passage in King Lear : there can be no mistake upon
the subject : and Mr Dyce, holding the latter opinion, and not
believing that Fletcher would be guilty of so direct a plagiarism
within a short time of the appearance of Shakspere's play, is neces
sarily driven to the conclusion that the parts by the former were
contributed towards the close of the life, or after the death, of the
latter. From a similar train of reasoning he rejects the idea of co
operation between the two writers. He thus leaves a perfect play,
of which at least a considerable portion was by Shakspere, before
Fletcher put a hand to it. The question then arises, — How came
Fletcher to tamper with a work of Shakspere's ? And, finding it
difficult to believe that such could be the case, were it a work
entirely by the latter, he finally settles that it was only partially by
him, and an alteration of an older play. We rather think the above

58* SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

to be something like the process ; hut we cannot say that we think
it satisfactory. It is not made to appear whether any parts of the
older play remain, or whether they have been entirely superseded by
Fletcher's additions ; and if the latter be maintained, it leaves us to
the unsatisfactory conclusion that Shakspere, who, by Mr Dyce's
admission, wrote the first and last acts, besides other occasional
scenes throughout the play — who thus, it may be said, carefully
revised and partially re-writ it, left some scenes so bad, that even
the spiritless imitation of his own Holofernes was considered, after
his death, an improvement upon them. We should have thought
that Mr Dyce would have had a better word for the judgment of
the great dramatist. As we have referred to a passage which we
hold to be no imitation, we may remark here that the real imitations of
Shakspere are entirely from plays of an early date, Hamlet being
the latest, which was published, in its present form, in 1604, and
probably acted some years earlier ; and that there is no trace of
imitation of any of the later plays, although Shakspere's part (so
admitted by Mr Dyce) presents frequent cases of resemblance.

It is a singular fact, that to none of those who have examined
this play does it appear to have occurred that any principle was to
be discovered which would facilitate the inquiry. Mr Knight
touched the threshold of the notion once, but did not enter into it ;
Mr Spalding does not give a hint of such a thing ; and as Mr Dyce
rejects the idea of co-operation altogether, it was excluded from
his view. Whether obvious or not, a principle must exist, and it
involves the discovery of the condition or terms of partnership
between the two writers. This discovery we think we have suc
ceeded in making, and we lay it at once before the reader. It
must have been evident from many of our preceding remarks, that
we reject the idea of anything like equal co-operation in the work ;
and, indeed, the conclusion we have arrived at is, that there was a
superior and directing, and an inferior and subordinate mind, engaged
upon it. Our readers must have been prepared for this by much
that has gone before ; but it may not be so obvious that it is in as
direct variance with Mr Spalding's theory, as with that of Mr Dyce.
That it is so, however, we will endeavour to show. Let it be proved

IN THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 59*

that the underplot is entirely the work of one writer, and two things
necessarily follow : first, that the direction, arrangement, and execu
tion of by far the most difficult scenes was given to the inferior
writer ; and, second, that these scenes were produced in the height
of Fletcher's success, and after some of his most successful pieces in
conjunction with Beaumont had been given to the stage. During
this period, which is definitely fixed between the production of
King Lear and Macbeth and the death of Shakspere, it is not pro
bable that Fletcher, however inferior to him in genius, would have
joined him, except on equal terms ; and, during the same period, it
is not a very probable supposition that Shakspere would have joined
Fletcher on any terms at alL On the contrary, all our researches
have tended to show that Fletcher's part is that of a young and
inexperienced writer, — probable enough in the case we have sup
posed, but impossible in Mr Spalding's.

We have observed before that the framework of the play is
Shakspere's ; and this is the first evidence of direction. The be
ginning includes many difficulties that would be avoided by a young
writer, — among others, the first sketch of the characters, every one
of which, in the play before us, is introduced by Shakspere. The
first scene in which Fletcher appears, is the second of the Second
Act. This scene has been much admired, and we think may partly
have strengthened the idea that it was a later work ; for it is very
well written, and contains many points of resemblance to passages
in the writer's most successful plays. But, in truth, its supposed
excellence (for we think it has been over estimated) is by no means
incompatible with the fact of its being a very early work. We think
scenes of this description much more likely to have been successfully
written by a young man, than scenes of wit or humour ; and when
we add that the one in question is, as we have shown before, utterly
wanting in dramatic power, falling far short in this respect of any of
the later productions of the writer, there is little room for wonder
left. But the most significant fact of all is, that the whole of the
First Act, and the first scene of the Second, being the invention of
Shakspere, Fletcher is not even then suffered to go alone, but has
the assistance of the same scene in Chaucer. So with the commence-

60* SHARES OF SHAKSPERE AND FLETCHER

ment of the next scene : in the continuation of which, however, he
tries his invention for the first time, and finds the difficulty of being
humorous. Two of the scenes which follow endeavour to carry out
Shakspere's view of the character of the jailor's daughter, and
another gives a version of the meeting of Arcite and Theseus. The
first scene of the Third Act is by Shakspere, which Fletcher follows
in a similar scene (the third) in the same Act ; and in the same way
a scene by the former, showing the first approach to madness in the
jailor's daughter, is followed by the latter in the fourth scene. The
only original introduction by Fletcher hitherto is in the third scene
of the Second Act. The fifth scene of the Third Act is a sort of
continuation, with the addition of his sole attempt at character — a
dull imitation of Holof ernes. The sixth scene continues the subject
of the third. The first scene of the Fourth Act is again an original
one of Fletcher's, — that is, it is not led to by a previous one of
Shakspere's. Yet, viewing the latter as the directing mind, we think
the subject may have been suggested by him; the execution is
anything but original. So of the next; the concluding part of
which runs parallel to Chaucer. In the last scene of this Act,
Shakspere gives another copy of madness for his associate to work
by, and introduces a new character, the doctor. This scene is again
followed in the Fifth Act by Fletcher, with such success as we have
pointed out. The rest of the Fifth Act is by Shakspere. In all that
is essential to the plot, the other contributed nothing in which he
was not assisted by a previous draught, either in his associate or in
Chaucer. This, we think, will be found a more satisfactory " prin
ciple of arranged co-operation " than Mr Knight's supposititious one,
who, reasoning from without — that is, from assumptions uncon
nected with anything he finds in this play, instead of from facts
evolved in his analysis of it, — finds not much difficulty in over
throwing the slight obstacle he himself raises to his own theory.

To sum up the result of our inquiry : — It is, that the play of TJie
Two Noble Kinsmen is one to which Shakspere possesses a better
title than can be proved for him to Pericles ; — that to him belong
its entire plan and general arrangement : but that, perhaps for want
of time to complete it by a day named, and probably by way of

MR HICKSON'S VIEW CONFIRMED BY METRICAL TESTS. 61*

encouragement to a young author of some promise, he availed him
self of the assistance of Fletcher to fill up a portion of the outline.

S. H.

[Recapitulation, from p. 55*-56* : Shakspere wrote Act i. except
perhaps some 20 or 30 lines in So. 2 (p. 36*) ; Act ii. Sc. 1 ; Act
iii. Sc. 1, 2 ; Act iv. last Scene ; Act v. except Sc. 2. The rest is
young Fletcher's.]

MR HICKSON'S DIVISION OF THE TWO NOBLE
KINSMEN, CONFIRMED BY METRICAL TESTS.

BY THE REV. F. G. FLEAY, M.A.

THIS play has been already so conclusively shown to be a
joint production of Shakspere and Fletcher, and the portion written
by each author has been so accurately assigned, that I should not
have thought it necessary to re-open the question, were it not that
every instance in which the results of critical examinations based on
different grounds can be obtained, is valuable, not only as to the
immediate end in view, but also as a test of the worth and power of
the methods employed. So in this instance ; if the examination as
to authorship based on considerations of an aesthetic nature, coincides
with that based on metrical criticism, we shall have not only an
enormously strong addition to the evidence of Shakspere's share in this
work, but also a remarkable example of the value of metrical tests
in determining authorship. It is for the latter reason that I now
proceed to give the results of metrical examination of this play of
The Two Noble Kinsmen. I may add, that having had to work in a
small country village, with no library within reach, and my whole
critical apparatus consisting of the Folio reprint, Mrs Clarke's Con
cordance, Dyce's Beaumont and Fletcher, and Sidney "Walker's Notes,
my results were obtained quite independently of previous investi
gators, whose essays I had never seen.

To come to the point, then : In this play there are two prose scenes,
Act ii. Sc. la ; Act iv. Sc. 3. Both these belong to the underplot.

62* MR HICKSON'S VIEW CONFIRMED BY METRICAL TESTS.

In my paper on Fletcher I have shown that Fletcher never wrote
prose in any of his plays. I should therefore assign these two prose
scenes in The Two Nolle Kinsmen to Shakspere. Mr Hickson has
given strong reasons for the same course, on other considerations.

Looking next to the number of rhymes, we find no aid as to dis
criminating these authors. Except in the masque, there are only five
in the whole play : two in the parts we assign to Shakspere ; three
in the Fletcher parts. Not only does this agree with Fletcher's
usual practice, but it enables us to say with confidence that Shak-
spere's part of this play was written as late as 1610 A. D. : as only in
TJie Tempest and Winters Tale do we find that he had given up
rhymes to anything like such an extent as he has here : even in
the Roman plays we find twenty rhymes in a play.

From the number of Alexandrines, we obtain no aid whatever.
There are three in the Shakspere parts, six in the Fletcher.

From the number of lines of one, two, or three measures, we also
obtain no aid : there are forty-one in the Shakspere parts, twenty-
seven in the Fletcher. But the number of double endings and of
incomplete lines of four measures, which are the most important
metrical means of distinguishing between these writers, will require
tabulation in extemo.

TABLE (SHAKSPERE)

Act. Scene. No. lines. No. double No. lines of Proportion of lines

endings. 4 feet. with double endings.

I. 1. 209 51 0- 1 in 4-1

2. 116 37 0 1 in 3'1

3. 100 37 0 1 in 2-7

4. 49 12 0 1 in 4*1

5. 6 0 0

III. 1. 122 36 0 1 in 3'4

2. 38 9 0 1 in 4'2
V. 1. 173 50 0 1 in 3'5

3. 46 42 0 1 in 3-5
4- 147 47 __!_ 1 in 3-1

Total 1124 321 1 1 in 3'5

MR HICKSON'S VIEW CONFIRMED BY METRICAL TESTS. 63*

This table contains all the scenes assigned to Shakspere, except
the two prose scenes which are certainly his. I now give a similar
table for the other parts.

TABLE (FLETCHER).

A.ct.

II.

Ill

IV.
V.

Scene.

15.

No. lines

275

No. double No. lines of Proportion of lines
endings. 4 feet. with double endings.

158 1 1 in 1-7

2.

82

38

3

1 in 2-2

3.

33

18

2

1 in 1-8

4

64

45

1

1 in 1-4

5.

39

23

0

1 in 1-7

3.

53

32

0

1 in 1-6

4.

20

11

0

1 in 1-9

5.

107

51

2

1 in 2-1

6.

308

192

3

1 in 1-6

1.

150

61

4

1 in 2-5

2.

156

78

2

1 in 2-0

2.

111

64

1

1 in 1-7

Total 1398 771 19 1 in 1-8

It will be seen that the metrical evidence confirms the results of
the higher criticism in the strongest manner. The average number
of double endings in the Shakspere parts is exactly that of the latter
part of his career (4th period, 2nd division, time of Winter's Tale) •
the number in the Fletcher part exactly agrees with that deduced in
my paper on Fletcher from all his undoubted works. In one scene
only (Act iv. Sc. 1) does his average fall as low as 2*5 ; and in this
scene there is, I think, some Shakspere material (not much) used by
him in the jailor's speeches. Moreover, the imperfect four-measure
lines occur in the Fletcher parts in the proportion of 15 to 1 in
the Shakspere parts. There is, therefore, not only the strongest
confirmation of the conclusions of the best critics as to this play, but
also the firmest ground for confidence in our metrical arguments. In
every case when examination careful enough for firm conclusions has

64* MR HICKSON'S VIEW CONFIRMED BY THE STOPT-LINE TEST.

been previously given, our results are found in agreement with them ;
\vhile, at the same time, we have in the examination of metres an
instrument far more powerful, because more exact and more scientific,
than any other that has ever been brought to bear on subjects of
this nature.

F. G. FLEAY.

ME HICKSON'S DIVISION OF THE TWO NOBLE KINS
MEN, CONFIRMED BY THE STOPT-LINE TEST.

BY P. J. FURNIVALL, ESQ., M.A.

HERE, again, it is needless to add any confirmation to Mr Hick-
son's results. They are certain and right, whatever metrical tests
say or deny. But having tried the Play by the stopt-line test, I add
the resulting figures here. They show, as before, p. 26*, Shakspere's
larger use of the unstopt or run-on lines (1 in 2*41) than Fletcher's
(1 in 5-53).

MR IIICKSON'S VIEW CONFIRMED BY THE STOPT-LINE TEST. 65*

SHAKSPERE.

FLETCHER.

Verse-lines.

Unstopt

Proportion.

Verse-lines.

Unstopt.

Proportion.

i. 1,

211

84

1 to 2

•51

2,

116

64

1

•81

3,

97

53

1

•83

4&5

,55

25

2

"2

ii. 1,

283

531

5

•33

ii. 2,

82

18

1 to 4

•55

Total

762

279

Ito2

•73

3,

33

8

4

•12

4,

65

9

7

•22

5,

39

12

325

iii. 1,

123

68

1

•80

0

•j

38

9

4

•22

iii. 3,

53

8

6

•62

4,

20

4

5

•

5,

135

13

10

•38

6,

310

64

4

•84

iv. 1,

150

26

5

•76

0

••i

156

30

5

•2

iv. 3,

(prose, 89

lines)

v. 1,

173

84

2

•05

v. 2,

113

12

9

•41

3,

146

72

2

•05

4,

136

58

2

•34

1156

204

1 to 5

•66

Total 1378

570

Ito2

•41

Eyme
Prol.

i

10

f

Epil.

18

4

Total

1206

218

Ito5

•53

So far, then, as the stopt-line test can settle the date or place of
Shakspere's part in The Two Nolle Kinsmen, it puts it (1 to 2 -41)
between Cyinbeline (1 to 2-52) and Winter's Tale (1 to 2 -12). But
the table above shows how the test fails in single scenes — as I be
lieve any single metrical test must : — it would give Shakspere's ii. 1,
and iii. 2, to Fletcher. Counting can never be a better judge than
real criticism.

1 Much short-line talk, as in many of Fletcher's scenes.

TRANSACTIONS.

5*

NOTE TO PAGE 31.

P. 31, note l. Malone, the discoverer and applier of the Ryme-
Test nearly 100 years ago, anticipated my remark. In his first note
to his comments on Love's Labour's Lost in his " Chronological Order
of Shakspeare's Plays," publisht in January, 1778 (Bell's Shakspere,
vol. ii. p. 315), he says : —

" A mixture of rhymes with blank verse, in the same play, and
sometimes in the same scene, is found in almost all his [Shakspere's]
pieces, and is not peculiar to Shakspeare, being also found in the
works of Jonson, and almost all our ancient dramatick writers. It
is not, therefore, merely the use of rhymes, mingled with blank
verse, but their frequency, that is here urged, as a circumstance which
seems to characterize and distinguish our poet's earliest performances.
In the whole number of pieces which were written antecedent to the
year 1600, and which, for the sake of perspicuity, have been called
his early compositions, more rhyming couplets are found, than in all
the plays composed subsequently to that year, which have been
named his late productions. Whether in process of time Shakspeare
grew weary of the bondage of rhyme, or whether he became con
vinced of its impropriety in a dramatick dialogue, his neglect of
rhyming (for he never wholly disused it) seems to have been gradual.
As, therefore, most of his early productions are characterized by the
multitude of similar terminations which they exhibit, whenever of
two early pieces it is doubtful which preceded the other, I am
disposed to believe, (other proofs being wanting,) that play in which
the greater number of rhymes is found, to have been first com
posed. *The plays founded on the story of King Henry VI. do
not indeed abound in rhymes ; but this probably arose from their
being originally constructed by preceding writers." *

*-* This last paragraph was substituted in the second edition of
the Essay in 1790, for the following words in the first edition: —
" This, however, must be acknowledged to be but a fallible criterion ;
for the Three Parts of King Henry VI. which appear to have been
among our author's earliest compositions, do not abound in rhymes."

But Malone did not strain the point he thus first made. He
put — and rightly — Romeo fy Juliet after The Two Gentlemen, though
in it [R. fy J.] " more rhymes, I believe, are found, than in any
other of his plays, Love's Labour's Lost and A Midsummer Night's
Dream only excepted." — F. J. F.

MR HICKSON'S VIEW CONFIRMED BY THE STOPT-LINE TEST. 65*

SHAKSPERE.

FLETCHER.

Verse-lines.

Unstopt, Proportion.

Verse-lines.

Unstopt.

Proportion

i.

1,

211

84

Ito2

•51

2,

116

64

1

•81

3,

97

53

1

•83

4&5, 55

25

2

•2

ii.

1,

283

531

5

•33

ii. 2,

82

18

Ito4

•55

Total

762

279

Ito2

•73

3,

33

8

4

•12

4,

65

9

7

•22

5,

39

12

3

•25

iii.

1,

123

68

1

•80

2,

38

9

4

•22

iii. 3,

53

8

6

•62

4,

20

4

5

•

5,

135

13

10

•38

6,

310

64

4

•84

iv. 1,

150

26

5

•76

2,

156

30

5

•2

iv.

3,

(prose, 89

lines)

v.

1,

173

84

2

•05

v. 2,

113

12

9

•41

3,

146

72

2

•05

4,

136

58

2

•34

1156

204

Ito5

•66

Total

1378

570

Ito2

•41

Ryme
Prol.

| 32

10

— —

Epil.

18

4

Total

1206

218

Ito5

•53

So far, then, as the stopt-line test can settle the date or place of
Shakspere's part in The Two Noble Kinsmen, it puts it (1 to 2'41)
between Cymbeline (1 to 2'52) and Winter's Tale (1 to 2'12). But
the table above shows how the test fails in single scenes — as I be
lieve any single metrical test must : — it would give Shakspere's ii. 1,
and iii. 2, to Fletcher. Counting can never be a better judge than
real criticism.

1 Much short-line talk, as in man'y of Fletcher's scenes.

TRANSACTIONS.

C6*
3. ON THE METEE OP HENRY VIII.

BY MB RODERICK, BEFORE 1757 A.D.

[As a Supplement to Mr Spedding's Paper on Henry VIII. it may
be of interest to reprint the earliest criticism on the peculiarity
of the metre of the play. This occurs in that most scathing and
amusing l exposure of Warburton's ignorance and assumption, — in
his editions of Shakspere, Milton, and the Dunciad, — by Mr
Thomas Edwards, in the sixth, and posthumous, edition of

" THE CANONS OF CRITICISM AND GLOSSARY, being a
Supplement to Mr Warburtorfs Edition of Shakespeare. Col
lected from the Notes in that Celebrated Work, and proper to be
bound up with it. By the other Gentleman of Lincoln's Inn.
.The Sixth Edition, with Additions. London. Printed for
C. Bathurst opposite St Dunstan's Church in Fleet-Street.
M.D.CC.LVIIL" This is the second title of the book. The
first is " The Canons of Criticism, and Glossary ; The Trial
of the letter Y, alias Y, and Sonnets. By Thomas Edwardst
Esq. ... C. Bathurst. . . . 175S.—F. J. F.]

"Remarks copied from Mr Roderick's Papers, on "Warburton's
edition of Shakespear, p. 225, XXX. Ibid. p. 453.

IT is very observable, that the measure throughout this whole
Play has something in it peculiar ; which will very soon appear to
any one, who reads aloud ; though perhaps he will not at first dis
cover wherein it consists. Whether this particularity has been taken
notice of by any of the numerous commentators on Shakespear, I
know not ; though I think it can scarcely escape the notice of any
attentive pronouncer. If those, who have published this Author,
have taken no notice of it to their readers, the reason may be, that
they have chosen to pass-by in silence a matter, which they have not
been able to account for. I think, however, 'tis worth a few
words.

1. There are in this Play many more verses than in any other,
which end with a redundant syllable — such as these : —

" Healthful | and e^ver since | a fresh | admijrer
Of what | I saw | there an j untime|ly a'gue

1 Compare Professor Lowell's review in his My Study Window of J. R.
Smith's Library of Old Authors.

3. RODERICK ON THE METRE OP EENRY VIII. A.D. 1756. 67*

I was j then pre|sent saw 'em | salute | on horse|back
In their | embrace|ment as | they grew | toge|ther," &c.

The measure here ends in the syllables — mi — a — horse — ge — and a
good reader will by a gentle lowering of the voice, and quickening of
the pronunciation, so contract the pairs of syllables — mirer — ague —
horseback — gether — as to make them have only the force of one
syllable each to a judicious hearer.

This Fact (whatever Shakespear's design was in it) is undoubtedly
true ; and may be demonstrated to Reason, and proved to Sense ; the
first by comparing any Number of Lines in this Play, with an equal
number in any other Play ; by which it will appear, that this Play
has very near two redundant verses to one in any other Play. And,
to prove it to Sense : Let any one read aloud an hundred lines in any
other Play, and an hundred in This ; and, if he perceives not the
tone and cadence of his own voice to be involuntarily altered in the
latter case from what it was in the former, I would never advise
him to give much credit to the information of his ears.

Only to take Cranmer's last prophetic speech about Queen
Elizabeth ; and you will find, that in the 49 lines which it consists
of, 32 are redundant, and only 17 regular. It would, I believe, be
difficult to find any 50 lines together (out of this Play) where there
are even so many as 17 redundant.

2. Nor is this the only peculiarity of measure in this play. The
Ccesurce, or Pauses of the verse, are full as remarkable. The common
Pauses in English verses are upon the 5th or the 6th syllable (the
6th I think most frequently). In this Play a great number of
verses have the Pause on the 7th syllable : such as (in the aforesaid
speech of Cranmer) are these :

" Which time shall bring to ripeness — she shall be.

" A pattern to all princes — living with | her.

*'• More covetous of wisdom — and fair virjtue.

" Shall still be doubled on her — truth shall nurse | her.

" And hang their heads with sorrow — good goes with | her.

" And claim by those their greatness — not by blood.

" Nor shall this peace sleep with her — but as when.

"As great in admiration — as herself.

" Who from the sacred ashes of her hon|our.

" Shall be and make new nations — he shall flour |ish.

" To all the plains about him — children's children."

G8* 3. RODERICK ON THE METRE OP HENRY VIII. A.D. 1756.

3. Lastly, it is very observable in the measure of this Play ; that
the emphasis, arising from the sense of the verse, very often clashes
with the cadence that would naturally result from the metre : i. e.
syllables that have an emphasis in the sentence upon the account of
the sense or meaning of it, are putin^he uneven places of the verse ;
and are in the scansion made the first syllables of the foot, and con
sequently short : for the English foot is Iambic.

Take a few instances from the aforesaid speech.

" And all that shall succede. ShSba was nejver.
Than this ble"st soul shall be : 811 princely grajces.
Her foes sh&ke, like a field of beaten corn.
And hang their heads with sorrow ; good grows with | her.
In her days every man shall eat in safe|ty,
Under his own vtne what he plants, and sing.
Nor shall this peace slee"p with her ; but as when.
Wherever the bright sun of heav'n shall shine.
Shall be, and make neV nations. He shall floujrish,
ShaU see this, and bl^ss heav'n."

"What Shakespear intended by all this I fairly own myself ignor
ant ; but that all these peculiarities were done by him advertently,
and not by chance, is, I think, as plain to all sense ; as that Virgil
intended to write Metre, and not Prose, in his ^neid.

If, then, Shakespear appears to have been careful about measure,
what becomes of that heap of emendations founded upon the pre
sumption of his being either unknowing or unsolicitous about it 1
Alterations of this sort ought surely to be made more sparingly than
has been done, and never without great harshness indeed seems to
require it, or great improvement in the sentiment is obtained by it.

[The notice about Mr Roderick at the end of the Advertisement
to the Canons is as follows :— ^

" The Gentleman, whose assistance Mr Edwards acknowledges in
the Preface, was Mr Roderick, Fellow of Magdalen College in
Cambridge, and of the Royal and Antiquarian Societys. He dy'd
some little time before his friend,1 bequeathing to him such of his
Papers, as related to the Canons of Criticism : And the Additions to
that work from those papers are inserted in their proper places."]

1 Thomas Edwards died Jan. 3, 1757, aged 58, and was buried, * in th.3
Church-yard of Ellesborough in Buckinghamshire.'

INDEX.

ABBOTT, E. A., on the Ryrae-test, 18;
peculiarities of Fletcher's metre, 74 ;
S.'s use of extra-syllable endings, 76 ;
the metre of The Shrew, 119—123

JEschylus, Furies of, 259

Alexandrines, 12, 15, 19, 57, 79, 313

Allegory in poems and plays, 377

All's Well, $c. :
Date of, 10, 300

Love's Labour Won, relation to, 12. 285
Metrical characteristics of, 285, 450
Partly written at different times, 285
Rosalind, banishment of, 328
Valentine and Proteus, 17, 18

Allusions, political, in plays and sermons,
377, 378

Altered plays, 339

Antony and Cleopatra :
Date of, 10, 370
Verse-endings of, 450, 457

airaZ \ey6fitva, 113, 114

Apollonius of Tyre, used by S., 328

As You Like It :

Chaucer's Gamelyn, 328

Date of, 10, 21

Metrical characteristics of, 450

Bathurst on S.'s versification, 444

Beaumont's style imitated, 4; opinion of
audiences, 79

Beaumont and Fletcher's plays, author
ship of, 51; characteristics, 53, 83;
joint plays, 63 ; four plays in one,
73 ; False One, 83 ; Philaster, 83

Blank verse, various styles, 6 ; as a
test, 16, 20, 34, 36; school, 313

Boccaccio's Decameron used by S., 328

Cade, Jack, his ' wax ' saying in 2 Hen.

VL, 512

Chalmers, dates of S.'s plays, 10
Chapman, whether sharer in S.'s Henry

VIII. , 454

Chaucer's characters used by S., 328
Cinthio's Hecatommithi used by S., 328

Clarke, Mr and Mrs Cowden, quoted on
Hamlet's Dozen or Sixteen Lines,
465 n.

Coleridge's criticism estimated, 256
Comedy of Errors :

Date of, 10, 17

Incidents in, 328, 329

Metrical characteristics of, 450

Rhyming lines in, 1 1
Comic element in S.'s tragedies, 263, 271
Coriolanus :

Date of, 10, 367

Extracts from Plutarch, 367

Verse-endings of, 450, 458

Volumnia's speech in, 277, 284
Cymbeline :

Date of, 10, 18, 30, 315

Incidents in, 328

Metrical characteristics of, 315, 450,
460, App. 13*

Damon and Pythyas, tenor of, 380

De Quincey on the Porter-scene (i*ef.),

258

Dekker's scattered rhymes, 313
Delius, dates of S.'s plays, 10
DIRECTOR'S Introductory Speech, v
Doggrel rhymes, 16 ; in various plays,

87, 88, 119, 325
Double endings in S.'s plays,- &c., 2, 6,

16, 31

Drake, dates of S.'s plays, 10
Dramas, politics of S.'s, 377, 396
Dramatic poetry, metrical tests of, 1
Dramatic variety and contrast, S.'s, 262,

272
Dryden, apassage from, metamorphosed,3

Elizabeth (Queen), allusions to, in plays,
381, 405, 407

ELLIS, A. J. , on the Ryme-test, 1 9 ; on
heroic verse, 27; on the metre of
The Shrew, 116—119; on the Por
ter in Macbeth, 274

70*

INDEX.

Elze, Dr Karl, opinion on the date of

Henry VIII., App. 22*
English heroic verse, 27

Farmer, Dr, on The Taming of the
Shrew, 254

FLEAY, Rev. F. G., on Metrical Tests of
Dramatic Poetry, 1 : see also Beau
mont, Fletcher, Massinger, Rowley,
Julius Ccesar, All's Well, Macbeth,
Marina, Pericles, Taming of the
Shrew, Two Gentlemen, and all S.'s
plays.

• • on the Porter-scene in Macbeth,

Discussion on, 498

Fletcher, blank verse of, App. 34* ; hand
in S.'s Henry VIII., 8, 74,
454 ; style imitated, 3 ; plays, 37,
51 ; Alexandrines in, 57, 79 ; allu
sions to events in, 80 ; authorship
of, 58, 78; double-endings in, 79,
30, 313; incorrect state of, 316; me
trical peculiarities of, 74, 82, 83 ;
Massinger' s hand in, 7, 51; Elder
Brother, quotations, App. 34* ;
Faithful Shepherdess, 78, 79 ; Two
N. K., 53, 73, 82; Love's Cure, 80;
Philaster, quotation, Act IV., App.
46*; date of, App. 47*; Spanish
plays, 81 ; Woman's Prize, 86

Fletcher, his imitations of Shakspere in
The Two Noble Kinsmen, App. 48*,
49*

Fletcher and Massinger's joint plays,
table of, 56

Fletcher and Middleton, Rowley, Shirley,
table of joint plays, 60

Fool, or Jester, in plays, 324

FURNIVALL, F. J., opening speech, Y—
xi ; objections to Mr Fleay's order
of S.'s plays, 17, and the Ryme-
test as sole guide to S.'s chron
ology, 32, 242, 504 ; on the Two
Noble Kinsmen, 73 ; on the genuine
and spurious parts of The Taming of
the Shrew, 102; Timon of Athens,
242; Pericles, 252; Henry VIII. ,
App. 24*; and the Two Noble
Kinsmen, 64* (see 455 ) ; on the
genuineness of the Macbeth Porter's
speech, 273, 498; on the date of The
Two Gentlemen of Verona, 17 ; on
Julius Ccesar being wholly genuine,
502 ; on Hamlet's ' Dozen or six
teen lines,' 493 ; on inconsistencies
in Hamlet, 511 ; extracts for ' Land-
damn'in Winter's Tale, 511 ; Da
nish drinking, and firing at toasts,
512; Jack Cade's ' wax,' 512

Genuineness of works determined by

metrical tests, 6
Geographical inaccuracy in The Two

Gentlemen, 22

Goethe's Plays, character of, 272
Gorboduc, or Ferrex and Porrex, tenor

of, 380
Greene and Marlowe school, Shrew,

Henry VI., Titus, are productions

of, 8, 36
Greene's style, imitated, 5

H, omission of, in names, Anthony, 357,

503

HALES, J. W., objections to Mr Fleay's

order of S.'s plays, 21; reasons

why The Two Gentlemen was before

Romeo $ Juliet, 22 ; on Fletcher's

metre, 83 ; Paper on the Porter in

Macbeth, 255—269; on, the "Witches,

&c. in Macbeth^ 506; on Shakspere's

allusions to Politics, &c., 509

Hallam's estimate of Play-dates, 1

HALLIWELL, «L 0., on the dates of Co-

riolanus and S.'s Plutarch plays, 367

Hamlet, a youth at the beginning of the

play, thirty at its close, 494
Hamlet :

Blank verse in, 25

Date of, 10

' Dozen or Sixteen Lines ' by Hamlet,

465

Drunkenness, and firing for toasts, 512
Illustration in, of S.'s habit of cata
loguing circumstances, App. 32*
Inconsistencies in, 511
Inner play in, 314, 466
Metrical characteristics of, 450
Quotations from, App. 32*, 46*
Henry IV., V., VL, VIII. : see King

Henry.

Heroic verse (English), 27
Heywood's A woman killed with kind
ness referred to in S.'s T. of S., 95;
Edward IV. and Jane Shore, 386 ;
Four P.'s, quotation, 266 ; Royal
King, &c., 387

HICKSON, SAMUEL, the late, on th,e

shares of Shakspere and Fletcher in

The Two Noble Kinsmen, App. 25*

Historical elucidations of the date of The

Two Gentlemen, 320

Holinshed's Chronicle, used by S., 328,
342, 347 ; story of Macbeth, 342

Imitative passages, Fletcher from Shak
spere, App. 48*, 49*

INGRAM, Prof. J. K., on the 'light and
weak endings ' of Shakspere in re-

I:STDEX.

71*

lation to the Chronology of his
Plays, 442 ; Table of such endings
in S.'s plays, 450
Irregular measures, 6, 7, 16

James I.'s complaint against stage libels,

384

Jonson's, Ben, supposed alteration of
Julius Caesar, 35,7 ; remarks on S.,
361 ; use of rhyme, 37
Julius CcKsar :

Supposed alteration by Ben Jonson,

357 ; this, mere vagary, 504
Characteristics of, 360
Date of, 10, 18, 31, 370
Once-used words in, 359
Participles in -ed in, 357
Verse-endings of, 450
Words and phrases in, 358, 360

King Henry IT., Part L :.

Date of, 7, 10-

History and Politics of, 411, 427, 434

Taken from Holinshed's Chronicle,. 32/8

Verse-endings of, 450
King Henry IV., fart II. :

Date of, 7, 10

History and Politics of> 435, 437, 440

Taken from Holinshed's Chronicle, 328

Verse-endings of, 450
King Henry V. :

Date of, 10

History and Politics of, 416, 427, 434,
435, 439

Verse-endings of, 450
King Henry VI. :

Date of, 10, 15

History and Politics of, 419, 427, 433,
434, 435, 436, 437, 438, 440

Marlowe's share in, 336

Not S.'s mainly, 8

S.'s revision of, 11

Verse-endings of, 450
King Henry VIII. :

Allusions in, 22

Chapman's possible share in, 454

Date of, 10, 18, App. 23*

Double endings in, 2

Emerson's opinion on, App. 21*

Genuineness of, 6, 451, App. 1*

History and Politics of, 425, 438

Metrical characteristics, App. 13*,
23*, 443, 450, 453

Partly Fletcher's, 8, 74, 454, App. 1*

Shares of Shakspere and Fletcher in
(Spedding), App. 1*, 21* ; (Hick-
son), App. 18* ; (Fleay), App. 23*;
(Furnivall), App. 24*

Verse-endings of, 463

King John :

Date of, 7, 10, 334

History and Politics of, 397, 426, 432,
438, 441

Reference to S.'s son Hamnet in, 334

Verse-endings of, 450
King Lear:

Date of, 7, 10

Holinshed's Chronicle, 328

Rhymes in, 25

Verse-endings of, 450
King Richard II. :

Alexandrines in, 12

Date of, 10, 17

History and Politics of, 406, 432, 433,
434, 438, 440

Relation to Marlowe's Edward II., 12

Rhyming lines in, 11

Verse-endings of, 450
King Richard III. :

Date of, 7,'ltt

Double endings in, 7

History and Politics of, 423, 428, 433,
438, 440

Relation to Henry VI., 12

Verse-endings of, 450
Knight, C., on the spurious parts of
Tiwon> &c., 246

Latin quotations in T. of S., 89, 112

Leading ideas of plays, 323

Lear : see King Lear.

Lily's plays, political allusions in, 381

Love's Labour's Lost :

Alexandrines, absence of, in, 12

Armado lines, 336

Characteristics of, 23, 324

Date of, 7, 10, 31

Double-endings in, 7

* Extreme parts of time ' explained, 513

Rhyming lines in, 7, 11

Verse-endings of, 450
Love's Labour Won, 12
Love's Labour Won :

Re-arrangement of, 95

Relation to All's Well, $c., 285, 287

Macbeth :

Allusions in, 13, 21

'Bonfire,' 341, 501 n.

Composition of, 352

Connection with Middleton's Witch,

341

Date of, 10, 13, 21, 315
? from Holinshed's Chronicle, 328, 342,

347

Metrical characteristics of, 1 3, 353, 450
Part authorship by Middleton, 351
Porter scene, 255 ; his speech still

72*

INDEX.

spoken in Germany, 274; various
opinions on, 270—275, 498; rhythm
of, 275 ; authorship of, 278, 505
Present state not the original, 339
Rhyming tags in, 345, 350
Supposed spurious characters and pas
sages of, 348, 349 ; these defended
as genuine, 505
Stage directions in, 339, 343
Witches in, 344, 507
MALLESON, W.f on Hamlet's ' Dozen or

Sixteen Lines,' 465, 480
Malone's views of the dates, 10, and
verse of S.'s plays, 442 ; his dis
covery of the Ryme-test, i\d
Marina, Birth and Life of, hy S., ex
tracted from Pericles by F. G,
Fleay, 209 ; comments on, 253
Marlowe's Edward II. and S.'s Hick.

IL, 12
MARSHALL, Miss, on the rhythm of S.'s

prose, 283
Massinger's hand in Fletcher's plays, 7,

51, 56

Massinger's plays, characteristics of, 54;
table of, 54; style imitated, 4;
weak endings of, 313
Massinger and Field, Dekker and Row
ley, table of joint plays, 60
Measure for Measure :
Date of, 7, 12, 328
Incidents in, 329
Verse-endings of, 450
Merry Wives of Windsor :
Alexandrines in, 13
Date of, 10, 34-5
Fairy scene in, 314
Metrical characteristics of, 12, 34,

450

Merchant of Venice :
Characteristics of, 323
Date of, 10, 22, 31
Parallels in Two G. of V., 22
Style of, 12
Verse-endings of, 450
Metre, nature and effect of, 27
Metrical evidence as to All's Well, &c.,

286

Metrical humour, 313
Metrical table of S.'s plays, 16
Metrical test applied to Dramatic Poetry,
1, 6, 51; to S.'s plays, 6, 21,
25, 32, 78, 302, 303; Two Noble
Kinsmen, App. 60*
Metrical tests, canons for the use of, 312;

relation to higher criticism, 365

Middleton, estimate of, and quotation

from, 280; triple endings of, 313;

whether author of the Macbeth

Porter's speech, 278 ; his Witch and
S.'s Macbeth, 339, 346
Midsummer Nights Dream :

Date of, 2, 10, 11, 17, 20

Incidents in, 328

Rhyming lines in, 2, 11, 16

Stopped lines in, 2

Style of, 11

Unity of Time in, 22

Verse-endings of, 450
Milton, light and weak verse-endings of,

Modernized spelling is falsification, 249
Much Ado :

Date of, 10

Metrical characteristics of, 12, 450
Mysteries or Miracle-Plays, S.'s famili
arity with, 272

Names of characters in S. not descriptive,
23

Needy Knife-Grinder lines in Fletcher,
73, 82

New Shakspere Society — Objects and
Modes of Work, vi ; Notices of its
Meetings, v

NICHOLSON, DE BRINSLEY, on the Ryme-
test, 20, 35 ; on Fletcher's Faithful
Shepherdess, &c., 78 ; Love's Cure,
80 ; F.'s Spanish plays, 81 ; on The
Taming of the Shrew, 123; on
Timon of Athens, 249 ; on the
sub-play in Hamlet, 495 ; on the
4 extreme parts of time,' L. L. Lost,
513

Nobility, position of the English ; S.'s
views on, 426

'Old,' S.'s use of the word, 500. Cp.
" Pol-cat and Muske-cat ? there
wants but a Cat a mountaine, and
then there would be old scratch
ing." 1596. T. Nash. Haue with
you to Sa/ron-Walden, sign. H 3.
— F.

Once-used words, &c., as a test of S.'a
genuine work, 113, 114, 121 ; in
Julius Ccesar, 359 ; comparative
table of those in S.'s plays, 115

Othello :

Date of, 10, 328
Verse-endings of, 450

Participles in -ed in Julius Ccesar, 357
Pause-test, Mr Spedding on, 26
Pericles :

Authorship of, 8, 195, 451

Date of, 10, 15, 31

Fleay's theory of its composition, 197

INDEX.

73*

Incidents borrowed, 328

Metrical characteristics of, 195, 450,

459
Marina, Birth and Life of, extracted

from Pericles, by F. G. Fleay, 209
Rowley's and "VVilkins's hands in, 201
Tennyson's opinion as to its author
ship, 252

Walker's (A. W. Sidney) opinion, 253
Philip II. of Spain, allusion to, in plays,

382, 405, 407

Plagiarism, betrayal of, App, 47*
Plutarch (North's) used by S., 328;
extracts from edition probably used
by S., 367
Political use of the stage in S.'s time,

371, 377

Politics, S.'s, 440
Porter of Hell, 264
Prose, proportion of, in S.'s plays, 335 ;

quantity of, in S.'s plays, 16
Proteus, the name, 24
Puritans, allusions to, in S.'s plays, 383

Quarto editions of S.'s Works, 40 ; table
of, 44

Relief to strained sensations needful, 260
Rhyme, as a characteristic of dramatic
verse, 20, 36; proportion of, in S.'s
plays, 34, 335 ; lines, table of, 38 ;
tags in S.'s plays, 345, 355 ; test, of
composition, 6, 14, 16, 19, 20, 25 ;
of chronology of plays, 32 (Of.
under each play of S.'s) ; Malone's
discovery of rhyme-test, \\d
Rhythm in Middleton's prose, 279 ; of
S.'s prose, 284; in the Macbeth
Porter's speech, 275, 278 ; Volum-
nia's speech, 277, 284; Pandarus's
speech, 277 ; Tempest, I. i., 277 ;
Cymbeline, 278

Richard II., III. : see King Richard.
Rival plays, 359

Roderick on the peculiarity of the verse-
endings in Henry VIII. ,443
Romeo and Juliet :
Alexandrines in, 12
Date of, 2, 10, 22
Incidents in, 329
Parallels in Two G. of V., 23
Rhyming lines in, 11
Verse-endings of, 450
Rowley's hand in S.'s Pericles, 201 ; not
a co-author with Fletcher, 58; style
imitated, 5

Sapphic, Ecclesiastical, accent of, applied
to Fletcher's metre, 82

SEELEY, J. R., on Hamlets * Dozen or
Sixteen Lines,' 473, 487

Shallow imitated in Lucullus's talk, 245

Shakspere, adoption of blank verse, 11,
16, 25, 34, App. 33*, 35* ; Alexan
drines, use of, 19 ; Church, views
of the, 438; descriptions, changed
style, 30 ; Quarto editions of "Works,
40; habit of cataloguing circum
stances, App. 32* ; History in his
torical plays, 396 ; incomplete play-
writing, 334 ; metre, App. 34*;
extra syllable, use of, 77 ; power
of people, allusions to, 438; rhyme,
use of, 25, 37, 314; Scotch, S.'s
allusions to, 417; style, differences
of, 1, 30; epochs in, 300, 335;
progressive change, 7, 11, 18, 28;
Treason, S.'s treatment of, 415;
use of authors or works — Chaucer,
Apollonius of Tyre, Holinshed,
Plutarch, Boccaccio, Cinthio, 328;
weak endings, 442 ; table of, 450,
457

Shakspere's Plays, Chronological Table
of, 10 ; chronology of, judged by
their metre, &c., 8, 17, 21, 32, 285;
comparative lengths of, 354; prose
in, 12; metrical characteristics
tabulated, 16; politics of, 396;
songs in, 29; certain plays of,
written in portions, 285, 304

Shakspere's Plays classified :

I. Rhyming period, 8, 11

II. Comedy and History, 8, 12

III. Tragedy, 9, 13

IV. Roman period, 9, 14
Siddons's, Mrs, mode of studying parts,

261

SIMPSON, R., on the Ryme-test, and
Valentine and Proteus, 18; on The
Tivo Noble Kinsmen and Fletcher's
Knife-Grinder lines, 82 ; on the
once-used words in each of S.'s
plays, 114; table of them, 115;
Paper on the Political Use of the
Stage in Shakspere's time, 317 ;
Paper on the Politics of Shakspere's
Historical Plays, 396 ; on the Por
ter in Macbeth, 276 n.\ on the sub-
play in Hamlet, 495

Spalding, W., essay on The Two Noble
Kinsmen, App. 25*, 29*

SPEEDING, Mr, on the Pause-test, 26;
on the Porter in Macbeth, 274 ;
on the several Shares of Shakspere
and Fletcher in Henry V1IL, App.
1*, 21*

Stage, political use of, 371 ; fault found

74*

INDEX.

with, by Bishops, in 1544, 371 ; Uni
versities, 1607, 371; use and abuse,
372; plays, character of, 376;
libels, complaint against, 384 ; ex
posure of vices, 390; satires on
eminent men, 391

Stopt lines as a test (cf. Unstopt line), 2,
26, 31, 73

Stowe's Annales, illustrations to Hamlet
from, 512

Style in vogue in S.'s days, 36

Table of airaZ, Xtyoptva in S.'s plays,
115 ; metrical Table, 16 ; of Quarto
editions, 44; Fletcher tables, 56,
60, 64; lengths of plays, 354;
S.'s rymed tags, 355
Taming of the Shrew :
Authorship of, 85, 102
Date of, 10, 15, 17, 31, 95, 103, 300
Genuineness of, 6
Grant White's opinions on, 103
Induction of, 101, 107, 120, 124
Metrical peculiarities of, 86, 111, 116,

121, 450

Once -used words in, 113, 114
S.'s hand in, 8, 104, 120
Stopt lines in, 111

Words in, not in other plays of S.'s, 89
Tancred and Gismunda, tenor of, 380
Taxation, denunciations of, 385, 408
TAYLOR, TOM, on the Porter- scene in

Macbeth, 270
Tempest :
Date of, 10
Incidents in, 329
Masque in, 314
Rhythm of opening, 277
Unity of time in, 22
Verse-endings of, 450, 459
TENNYSON'S opinion of S.'s Pericles,
252 ; of passages in The Shrew,
105 ; and Timon of Athens, 242
Texts, Quarto, of S.'s works, 40
Thomas, Lord Cromwell, play of, 388
Timon of Athens ;
Authorship of, 130, 140, 242, 451
Date of, 10, 15
Genuineness of, 6
Incidents in, 328
The play as written by S., omitting
insertions by others, edited by F. G
Fleay, M.A., 151
Theory as to its composition, by Mr

Furnivall, 245 ; C. Knight, 246
Verse-endings of, 450, 464
Titus Andronicus :
Authenticity of, 8, 126
Date of, 10

Not S.'s mainly, 8
Verse-endings of, 450
Clone's Chronological Historian, quota
tions from, 320
Troilus and Cressida :
Arrangement of, 95, 303, 306
Composition of, 304
Chaucer's Troilus, 328
Date of, 10, 21, 31, 300
Greek story in, 309
Hector story in, 308
Illustration of S.'s habit of cataloguing

circumstances, App. 32*
Metricaltest applied to, 303, 312
Quotations from, 307, App. 32* ; Act

V. scene 2, App. 32*
Three plots in, 305, 315, 336
Troylus plot in, 307
Verse-endings of, 450
Twelfth-Night :
Composition of, 287, 336
Date of, 10, 287, 298
Metrical test, 303, 330
Origin of, 327
Verse-endings of, 450
Two Gentlemen of Verona :
Authorship of, 303, 318, 336
Characteristics of, 11, 21, 22, 26,

323

Composition of, in portions, 287, 289
Connection with M. of V., 392
Date of, 10, 11, 17, 22, 31, 287, 300,

319, 329
Doggrel in, 325
Historical allusions in, 291, 320
Metrical test applied to, 302, 329
Once-used words in, 359
Origin of, 290, 327
Parallels in M. of F., 22 ; It. and J.,

23

Phrases, &c., 294, 298,330
Proteus, 25

Eelation to Taming of a Shrew, 12
Valentine Sonnet in, 336
Verse-endings of, 450
Two Noble Kinsmen :
Mr S. Hickson on the Shares of S.

and Fletcher in, App. 25*
Mr H.'s view confirmd by metrical

tests, 6]*, 64*
Analogy with Henry VIII., 454, App.

18*, 20*
Authorship of, 8, 73, 454. App. 25*,

26*
Chapman's supposed authorship (C.

Knight), App. 26*
Dyce's and Spalding's opinions, App.

30*, 35*, 56*, 58*
S.'s hand in, 74, 83

INDEX.

75*

Imitative passages after Hamlet, App.

48*
Metrical test of joint authorship

(Fleay), App. 61*
Quotations from, Act I. scene i., App.

30*; I. ii. 31*; I. iv. 31*, 33*,

36*, 37*, 40*, 41* ; III. ii. 42*,

46*, 53* ; V. i. 54*
Shakspere's and Fletcher's shares in

(Hickson), App. 25*
Stopt-line test (Furnivall), App. 64*
Summary of apportionment to Si and

F., App. 55*, 60*
Verse-endings of, 450, 454, 462

Unity of time, observance of, 22
Unstopt line, S.'s use of (cf. Stopt line),
73

Venus $ Adonis, lately-found editions
of, 41 n.

Verse-tests, history of, 442, 446

Walker's (W. Sidney) opinion onPericle*,

253

Weever's Mirror of Martyrs, extract, 370
WHEATLEY, H. B., on S.'s part of

Titus Andronicus> 1 26
White, R. Grant, on the genuine parts
of The Taming of the Shrew, 103
106

Wilkins's hand in S.'s Pericles, 202
Jointer's Tale :
Date of, 7, 10, 243
Double endings in, 7
Metrical characteristics of, 450, 461,

App. 14*

Rhyming lines in, 7, 442
Words, usage of, as a test, 304
Wordsworth, light and weak verse-end
ings, 447

Hunter notes (New Illustrations, i. 260) an early instance of
Shakspere's forgetting to put in a promist insertion in another re-
visd play, Love's Labours Lost, " It is ... a very serious disappoint
ment to find that there is no fulfilment of the promise given near
the beginning of the play, in the following lines :

This child of fancy that Armado hight,

For interim to our studies, shall relate
In high-born words the worth of many a knight,

From tawny Spain, lost in the world's debate.

Act I. Sc. i.

Here is a beautiful promise, but where is the fulfilment of it 1 The
words fill the mind with images of chivalry, the fields of Ronces-
valles and Fontarrabia, peculiarly appropriate in a story of Navarre,"
[but peculiarly inappropriate in a drama, and happily dissipated, like
the studies themselves, by the Princess's eyes.] — F.

COKRECTIONS.

p. xv. 1. 5, for Oriel read Exeter.

p. 102 ; at the end of the first paragraph, strike out " and Richard III. . . .
write."

p. 114, last line ; for over leaf, read next page.

p. 245, 1. 25 ; for Henry VI. and Richard III. come, read Henry VI.
comes.

p. 26*, note 1 ; for J. S., read W. S.

JOHN GUILDS AND SON, PRINTERS.

SHAKSPERE ALLUSION-BOOKS.

POSTSCRIPT TO GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

THE determinations of criticism are rarely final ; and in particular
there are several supposed early Allusions to our Author which can
be only provisionally received. It would be best if we could always
discriminate with rigour the Allusion from the Illusion. But the
progress of criticism cannot outstrip the progress of knowledge, and
no editor can know everything.

In our first instalment we have reprinted Gabriel Harvey's Third
Letter : which, apart from its supposed Allusions to Shakspere, will
be welcomed by our subscribers. It was put in type with the full
knowledge of the committee, and the Director believed that every
committee-man had, in the first instance, received a rough proof.
This turns out not to have been the case : for, owing to Mr Richard
Simpson's absence from home, that gentleman did not see the reprint
till the edition had been stereotyped. A more unfortunate omission
never was made : for Mr Simpson was in possession of evidence
which entirely rebuts the supposed Allusions : and his argument
was unknown to the editor till some weeks after its publication in
the columns of the Academy, Oct. 17, 1874.

On getting sight of Mr Simpson's letter, and looking into the
question for himself, the editor found he had no other course but to
acknowledge that he had been drawn by his predecessors into a grave
error.

The mistake, however, has its compensating advantage : it lias
been committed, he hopes, for the last time ! At length, a universally
accepted early Allusion has been exploded, and hardly any editor
will henceforth, at least with a knowledge of this Postscript, have
the temerity to contend that the poet saluted " with a hundred bless
ings " was Shakspere. But for a while a few of the older school will
treasure up this time-honoured Allusion, as loath to part with so
important a fraction of their little hoard. The latest memorialist,
Mr Samuel Neil, of Edinburgh, whose excellent Biography of
Shalwspeare, 4to, 1869 (written for The Worthies of* Warwick
shire) pp. 17 — 19, includes a long extract from Harvey's Third
Letter, is, to say the least, reluctant to capitulate, and clings to

SHAKSPERE ALLUSION-BOOKS. POSTSCRIPT.

the hope that it was like hash's impudence to appropriate Harvey's
salutation !

"Well ! we have done the utmost of our duty to the old faith in
reprinting Harvey. We might have been blamed for excluding him ;
we ought not to be blamed for including him. It remains only for
us to make the amende, and reprint, with one Unimportant omission,
Mr Richard Simpson's graceful and conclusive discussion.

" 8HAKSPERE ' ALLUSION-BOOKS.'

4A, Victoria Road, Clapliam, S. W.

"I am sorry to have to criticise the first instalment of the Allu-
sion-boolts of the New Shakspcre Society, especially as it might seem
a retaliation on Dr Ingleby for his criticisms on me in his introduction
to the book. I can only say, that this consideration is my only diffi
culty in sending you this letter.

" In the sixth head of his introduction, Dr Ingleby says that he
reprints Gabriel Harvey's third letter, partly 'from his supposed
allusions to Shakspere, viz., " the worst of the four," and " one whom
I salute with a hundred blessings ; " ' and afterwards lie explains the
meaning of Harvey's wish that Greene's honesty or learning may be
half as much as that of the worst or least learned of the four. ' That
is, half as honest as Shakspere, or half as learned as Nash ; the four
being, as we have seen, Marlowe, Peel, Nash, and Shakspere.' Then
on another sentence Dr Ingleby remarks, ' This clearly alludes to
Greene's attack on the Shak&scene.'

''This is a pardonable oversight of Dr Ingleby, who errs cum
Platone, or rather with a multitude. Harvey in his third letter is
referring to Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier (see p. 129, 1. 15),
and to no other of Greene's books, for he wishes us to infer that he
has seen no others : 'If his other books be as wholesome gear as this '
(p. 130, 1. 10). He is only referring to the Quip; and in the Quip
the four persons abused were Harvey the father, and his three sons
Gabriel, Richard, and John. And this abuse was the chief cause of
Harvey's writing the letter — 'partly the vehement importunity of
some aifectionate friends, and partly mine own tender regard of my
father's and my brothers' good reputation have so forcibly overruled
me' (p. 124, 1. 12). The abuse of these parties is thus described by
Harvey : —

' The best is, the persons abused are not altogether unknown, they have
not so evil a neighbour that ever read or heard those opprobrious villanies (it
is too mild a name for my brother Richard's most abominable legend, who
frameth himself to live as chastely as the lewd writer affected to live beastly)
but hath presently broken out into some such earnest or more passionate
speeches ; " 0 pestilent knavery, who ever heard such arrant forgeries and rank
lies." '

SHAKSPERE ALLUSION-BOOKS. POSTSCRIPT. 3

This legend of Richard Harvey is not, and never was, in Greenes
Groatsioorth of Wit. Neither is it now in the Quip. But it was, as
Dyce abundantly proves, in the first impression, which Green was
urged by his physician to alter. For the whole proof of this I refer
to Dyce's * Account of R. Greene and his Writings,' prefixed to his
edition of Greene's Dramatic Works.

" The four persons referred to are Harvey senior and his three sons.
The worst of them, let us hope for modesty's sake, is Gabriel ; the
unlearnedst must be the ropemaker himself, Harvey the father.
There is no allusion here to the Groatsworth of Wit ; nor is there in
the next sentence, 'Thank other for thy borrowed and filched plumes
of some little Italianated bravery ; and what rernaineth but flat im-
pudency and gross detraction ] ' Harvey guessed rightly that the
Quip was a mere plagiarism ; but lie evidently did not know Thynne's
poem, or he would triumphantly have exposed the theft, instead of
merely .surmising and asserting it.

" As for the other ' allusion ' to Shakspere, ' whom I salute with
a hundred blessings,' Dr Ingleby, I am afraid, has been misled by
fanciful 'biographers who never read Nash's reply to Harvey in
Strange News, sig. L 2 : —

' To make me a small seeming amends for the injuries thou hast done me,
thou reckon est me up amongst the dear loves and professed sons of the muses,
Edmund Spenser, A. Fra'unce, T. Watson, S. Daniel. With a hundred bless
ings and many prayers thou intreatest me to love thee.

' Content thyself, I will not.'

It would be absurd to deny that here Nash refers to Harvey's third
letter (p. 148), and appropriates the supposed Shaksperian allusion to
himself. He is manifestly right.1 There is no allusion whatever to
Shakspere in this letter, which should be omitted from all future
lists of ' allusion books,' except so far as relating to Greene and Nash.
" While I am writing on this matter, will you allow me to correct
a note to a communication of my own, which Dr Ingleby has printed
at the end of his Introduction, p. xlvi. I referred (from memory) to

1 It must be remembered that Harvey has said, " Such lively springes of
streaming Eloquence : & such right-Olympicall hilles of ammvntinge witte :
I cordially recommend to the deere Lovers of the Muses : and namely to the
professed Sonnes of the same : Edmond Spencer, Eichard Stanihurst, Abraham
France, Thomas Watson, Samuel 1 Daniell, Thomas Nash, and the rest : whom
I affectionately thancke for their studious endevours, commendably employed
in enriching & polishing their native Tongue, never so furnished or embellished

as of late I speake generally to every springing wit: but more

specially to a few : and tit this instante singularly to one : whom 1 salute with
a hundred blessings :" (the italics are ours). With Nash's reply before us,
we cannot hesitate to admit that the ' amountlnge witte ' refers to the
4 springing wits' Spenser, France, Watson, Daniel, and Nash : and that 'o£
late ' is relative to ' at this instante ' ; and that both refer particularly to
Nash.— C. M. I.

4 BHAK8PBBE ALLUSION-BOOKS. POSTSCRIPT.

a book of Sir Edwin Sandys. It should have been to A Collection
of Letters made by Sir Tolrie Matthews Knujlit ; London : Herring-
man, 1660. At p. 100 is a letter, 'one friend to another on the
miscarriage of a letter.' The writer describes what the lost sheet con
tained, and adds : —

* For I must tell you I never dealt so freely with you in any ; and (as that
excellent author Sir John Falstaff says) what for your business, news, device,
foolery, and liberty, " I never dealt better since I was a man."/

I think that some of these letters were written about 1600. They
are undated and generally without names.

* * # # *

" After what I have said I need scarcely add that although I am
a member of the Committee of the New Shakspere Society, I had no
part in the reprint of Harvey's letter. If I had known his intention,
I would have shown the editor its irrelevancy. But the letter is very
interesting on other accounts, and it is good to reprint it, except so
far as any such partial reprint stands in the way of future complete
editions of Harvey, Nash, Greene, or Lodge.

EICHAED SIMPSON."

We must say one word on the passage in, Green's Groatsivorth
of Wit (Allusion-Books, p. 29) which we have (p. x) compared to
Ulysses' speech on Degree in Troilus and Cressida. Dr R. G. Latham
has pointed out to us that this passage is really in heroic verse ; and
he thinks it may be an extract from Maiiow. It should be pointed
thus :

[Then] onely Tyrants should possesse the earth,

[Who] striving to exceede in Tyranny,

Should each to other bee a slaughter-man ;

[Un]till the mightiest outliving all,

One stroke were left for Death, that iii one age

Man's life should end.

C. M. INGLEBY,
Editor of the Sh. Allusion-Books.

Valentines, Ilford, Dec., 1874.

The .Subscription ,(£1 Is.) for 1875 became due on Jan. 1, «»c?, ?/ »o# y^
id, should be sent forthwith {not to the treasurer, but] to the Hon. Sec.,
A. G. SNELGROVE, Esq., London Hospital, London, E., by Money Order on,
the Chief Office, or to the Society^s account at the Alliance Bank, Bartholo
mew Lane, London, E.C. Members are askt to give the Hon. Sec. a standing
Order for their Subscriptions on their Bankers. A form is sent herewith.

g° No books will be sent to any Member until his Subscription
for 1875, and his arrears, if any, are paid.

.

—

First Report, July, 1875.

•§ 1. Objects and work of tlie Society. 1875. p. G

§ 2. The Society's Publications in § 5. Need of more Subscribers and

1874. p. -4 Helpers. p. 7

§ §. Results of the Society's first year's § 6. Prizes to College' and School'

work. , _ ,4^ 5 ,. . r, Shakspere-Classes,. p. 8

§ 4. The Society's Publications for*' Treasurer's Gash- Account, p, 10

" <.<•- llflja v 'J £f?O"l Of. I '-'<[;

§ 1. THE New Shakspere Society was founded in the
autumn of 1873 "To do Jionour to SHAKSPEEE, to make out
jthe succession of his plays, and thereby the growth of his
mind and art ; to promote the intelligent study of him, and
fto print texts illustrating his works and his times."
j The first woi*k of the Society was to bey by "metrical tests/'
;fco get a trial order of the production of Shakspere's works ;
which, when controlld by higher tests, would fix as nearly as
possible the succession of those works, and thus reveal the
growth of the poet's art and-mincl. • ,

To start this work, the Committee reprinted that most

.able, but almost overlookt and disregarded, article by ME

r JAMES SPEDDING on the play of Henry VIII. (from The

Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1850), which containd

the most striking confirmation of Mr Tennyson's view of the

play, and of the coincidence of the results of the higher

criticism, and a metrical test — that of the extra syllable, — and

which assignd, once and for ever, to Shakspere his part of

2 Coincidence of Metrical Tests with higher Criticism.

the play, and to Fletcher his. The confirmation of Mr
Spedding's results, by the late Mr Hickson on aesthetic
grounds, and by the unstopt-line and weak- ending tests,
though not needed by those who could follow Mr Spedding's
criticism, yet gave all students faith in these metrical tests
when us'd with judgment, and as aids to higher criticism.

The reprinting of Mr Spedding's article was followd up
by that of the late Mr Hickson's earlier one on The Two
Noble Kinsmen (from The Westminster Review for April, 1847) ;
and his division of this Play between Shakspere and Fletcher
was confirrnd by the metrical tests of the extra syllable, the
4-measure line, the unstopt-line, and the weak-ending. Again
the metrical tests coincided with the higher criticism.

A third time did they do so. Mr Tennyson had in his
undergraduate days at Trinity (Cambridge), pickt-out the
genuine from the spurious parts of Pericles ; and in December,
1873, read the genuine portion to Mr Furnivall. Mainly by
metrical tests, though with aid from esthetic critics, Mr Fleay
selected this genuine part of Pericles from the spurious, and
printed it in the Society's Transactions as the play of Marina.

A fourth instance of like kind may be cited. Mr Eichard
Grant White, developing hints of prior critics, had decided
that Shakspere wrote (besides the Induction) only those
parts of The Taming of the Shrew in which Katherine,
Petruchio, and Grumio were concernd. These parts were
pointed out in the Society's Transactions , and confirmd by
the ryme-test1 and the unstopt-line test. A separation
was also made by Mr Fleay between the supposd genuine
and spurious parts of Timon ; but this and the Shrew division
will require further investigation.

Lastly, Professor Ingram in his Paper of Nov. 13, 1874,

1 Other Papers will be found in the Transactions, in which the
results of the ryme-test are given, generally without, though occasionally
with, the data enabling the results to be verified.

Metrical Tests inditpensaUe, Work needed at them. 3

proved that the ' light- and weak-ending test J pickt-out the
latest plays of Shakspere, and arranged them in at least the
probable order of their production.

One result of the Society's first year's work has certainly
been, to bring out the value of Metrical Tests to an extent
unexpected by Englishmen,1 and to render these Tests hence
forth an indispensable part of Shakspere criticism here, as
they have long been in Germany, though there their value in
helping to distinguish spurious work from genuine had been
quite overlookt.

Mr Spedding's suggested f Pause-Test ', the Committee
hope that he will hereafter work out, and give his results,
and the material for their verification, in the Society's
Transactions. At the ' Speech-ending Test' Professor Ingram
is working. The unstopt-line and other metrical tests (except
that of the light and weak endings) the Committee trust will
find Members to take them up and carry out ; while others
who are fit for it, devote themselves to the higher criticism
of style and thought.

How far the outward signs and the inward spirit of
Shakspere agree, may be seen in the lately publisht work of
one of the Vice-Presidents of the Society, Professor Edward
Dowdeu, LL.D., The Mind and Art of Shakspere.*

1 Against the unwise attempt to make these tests the sole ones of
the dates of the plays, as strong protests have been utterd in the Society's
rooms and publications as have been heard outside.

2 The Director has procur'd the issue of a new and cheaper edition
of the translation of the late Professor Gervinus's Commentaries on
Shakspere (Smith, Elder & Co., 14s.), of a cheap reprint of Singer's
readable and handy edition of Shakspere's Dramatic Works (G. Bell
& Sons, 10 volumes, 2s. Qd. a volume, bound in cloth), the prepara
tion of a Shilling Series of Shakspere's Plays for Schools, &c., under
the superintendance of Prof. Dowden and himself, to be publisht by
Messrs H. S. King & Co., Cornhill; and the publication of another Part
of Mr R. Simpson's ' School of Shakspere ' by Messrs Chatto & Windus.
Professor Dowden is writing a shilling ' Shakspere ' Primer for Mr J. Et-
Green's Series of Primers publisht by Macmillan & Co,

I*

4 Tlie Society's Transactions and other Publications.

Another most important and interesting section of work
lias been opend by Mr Richard Simpson in his Papers on
" The Political Use of the Stage in Shakspere's Time " and
" The Politics of Shakspere's Plays." At the Meetings at
which those papers were read,, the Members present felt that
the subjects were too wide, and the historical training re-
quird for their due discussion too great, for any definite
conclusion on them to be come to at once within the range of
the Society. This feeling the Committee share, and they
trust that these Papers will receive from historians and anti
quarians the examination and consideration that they deserve.

The genuineness of the Porter scene in Macbeth the Com
mittee believe is settl'd by Mr Hales' s Paper and the dis
cussions on it. The overlookt " speech of a dozen or sixteen
lines" written by Hamlet for one of the Players, has been
ably discusst in the Society's Transactions by Professor J. B.
Seeley and Mr William Malleson. Though the speakers at
the meeting at which the Papers were read were almost all
in favour of the view that the speech was not in the Play as
it now stands, yet Prof. Seeley' s position is still strongly
maintaind by him, that the dozen or sixteen lines are in the
Player-King's speech, III. ii. 196—223.

§ 2. Turning now to the publication of Shakspere-Texts.
By the care and devotion of Mr P. A. Daniel, and the gener
osity of H.R.H. Prince Leopold, one of the Vice-Presidents
of the Society — lately, to the relief of the nation, recoverd
from his almost mortal illness — the Committee were able to
issue in 1874 the Parallel-Text edition of the first two Quartos
of Romeo and Juliet (1597 and 1599) — invaluable for work
at the play — and the simple reprints of these two Quartos.

Mr Henry Huth was so good as to allow the Society to
reprint his three most rare originals of Greenes Groatsworth of
Wit, and Chettles Kind-hartes Dreame, and Englands Mourn-

§ 2. TJie Society's Publications, 5

ing Garment.1 Mr S. Christie-Miller allowd the reprinting
of his unique copy of A Mournfull Dittie : and these, with
many selections from other books, were edited byj)r Ingleby
as Part I of the Society's Shakspere Allusion-Books. Owing
to an unlucky omission to send the proofs of Gabriel Harvey's
Third Letter to Mr Simpson, this Letter, which does not refer
to Shakspere (but does to Nash), was included in the Allusion-
Books ; but still the Letter has an independent value of its-
own as an illustration of the time and the contemporaries of
Shakspere.

Besides Prince Leopold's gift of the Parallel-Text Quartos
of Romeo and Juliet to every Member of the Society, the
Committee receivd from Dr Ingleby 372 copies of his Still
Lion, and from Mr Furnivall 500 copies of his Introduction to
Gervinus (" The Succession of Shakspere' s Plays and the use
of Metrical Tests in settling it "), which were distributed
among the Members of the Society.

The Committee desire to record their gratification, that
the first public act of a son of the Queen of England has been
the worthy one of giving a valuable Parallel- Text of Shak-
spere's first Tragedy to the Members of the New Shakspere
Society ; and they wish publicly to thank Prince Leopold for
his princely act.

To the other donors to,2 and workers for, the Society, the
Committee's thanks are due, and are gladly and warmly
renderd.

§ 3. The results of the Society's first year's work are most
encouraging. It has led the revival of interest in Shakspere that
the theatres and press bear witness to ; it has enrolld nearly

1 These the Director read in proof and revise with the originals.

2 Mr Horace Howard Furness of Philadelphia, the editor of the
admirable new Variorum Shakspere now in progress, gave us ten

1 guineas towards foundation-expenses. Mr Charles Childs, our printer,
has been most kind and liberal in his treatment of us.

6 § 3. Results of our first year's Work. § 4. Publications for 1875.

450 Members ; it has establisht Branch Societies, and helpt
to form many reading parties ; it has issued four Texts, besides
the three presented to it ; it has forc't on the notice of the
English public that most powerful and useful instrument in
Shakspere criticism, " Metrical Tests "; it has made known to
this generation the genuine and spurious parts of Henry VIII.,
The Two Noble Kinsmen, Pericles, and perhaps The Shrew and
Timon; it has re-opend the question of Shakspere' s Politics
and the Political use of the stage in his time ; it has gone far
to establish the genuineness of the Porter-scene in Macbeth ;
it has publisht the Parallel-Texts of Romeo and Juliet, and
the separate Quartos of 1597 and 1599, besides some very
rare Allusion-books ; it has procurd the publication of a new
and cheaper edition of the Englisht Gervinus, and the issue of
a cheap edition of Singer's Shakspere, &c. Its members Mr
Halliwell and Prof. Dowden have publisht valuable works on
Shakspere.

It wants but an increast list of Members, and more
workers with good heads, to ensure its lasting success.

§ 4. For 1875 the Committee have already issued,

In Series II, Plays : — Mr P. A. Daniel's revised edition of
J&omeo and Juliet (based on the Quarto of 1599), with an In
troduction, and full critical notes on the Text.

Henry V : a. Facsimile Reprints of the Quarto and First
Folio, edited by Dr Brinsley Nicholson.

In Series I, Transactions : — Part II of the Transactions
for 1874, completing the volume. Part I of the Transactions
for 1875-6.

Mr J. 0. Halliwell has been good enough to present to
the Society 600 copies of Mr A. H. Paget's pamphlet,
"Shakespeare's Plays: a Chapter of Stage History/' 1875;
and one has been sent to every Member.

The Subscriptions at present paid are not enough to
justify any further issue of Texts during 1875; but if suffi-

§ 4. Worfo in the Press. § 5. Want of Money. 7

cient money comes in, one or both of the two next-namd
publications will be sent out : —

In Series II, Plays : — Henry V, b. Parallel- Texts' of the
Quarto and First Folio, arranged so as to show their differ
ences; c. a revised edition of the Play, with Introduction,
Notes, and Parallel Passages from Halle's and Holinshed's
Chronicles, the whole edited by Brinsley Nicholson, M.D.

\In the Press.

In Series III, Originals and Analogues : — Part I. a. The
Tragicall Historye of Bomeus and Juliet, written first in
Italian by Bandell, and nowe in Englishe by Ar[thur]
Br[ooke], 1562 ; edited by P. A. Daniel, Esq. ; I. The goodly
hystory of the true and constant loue between Rhomeo and
Julietta ; from Painter's Palace of Pleasure, 1567 ; edited by
P. A. Daniel, Esq. [In the Press.

The following works are in the Press : —

In Series II, Plays : — The Tivo Noble Kinsmen, by Shak-
spere and Fletcher ; a. Facsimile Reprint of the First Quarto,
with collations of the Second; b. a revised edition, with
Introduction, Notes, and separate Glossaries of Shakspere's
and of Fletcher's wopds ; the whole edited by Harold Little-
dale, Esq., Trinity College, Dublin,

Cymbeline, edited, with Introduction and Notes, by W. J.
Craig, Esq., M.A., Trinity College, Dublin.

Series YI. ShaJcspere's England. William Harrison's
Description of England, 1577, 1586; edited from its two
Versions by F. J, Furnivall, M,A.

§ 5. The number of Texts issued in the year depends
wholly on the exertions of Members in getting more Sub
scribers to the Society.1 A Society to promote the study of

1 It must be rememberd that the Society's work includes that of two
Societies— one for discussion, and for publication of Transactions, and
another for Reprints — and therefore needs double the income of a Society
with one function, say £1000 a year.

8 § o. Want of Money. § 6. SJiakspere-Glass Prizes.

SHAKSPERE, and to provide the "best helps for that study, has
a right to expect the support of every English man and
woman with a yearly guinea to spare. There is no question
here of antiquarianism, as there is with the Early English
Text or any like Society. Every one who can read, can read
SHAKSPEEE : every one who can feel patriotism, knows that
a wide intelligent study of Shakspere must be a national
benefit. The Society which is founded to further this study
is doing a good work for England ; and its Members should
not hesitate to appeal to every friend and acquaintance for
help, in money and energy, to carry on the work.

Subscriptions should be paid when they are due, on the
first of the year, to enable the Committee to settle soon what
Texts they can bring out during the year. Members with
banking accounts should sign an Order on their bankers for
payment of their yearly subscriptions. A form of Order is
sent to every Member with this Report. This plan saves all
trouble both to Members and to the Honorary Secretary.
The Society's Texts are sent out by its agent, Mr Hodsoll,
School-Press, 22, Gower's Walk, Commercial Koad, London,
E. ; and all complaints as to non-delivery of books should be
made to him.

§ 6. Prizes. To encourage the study of Shakspere, and
bring the Society 's work under the notice of students, the
Committee propose to follow the example of the Early Eng
lish Text Society, and give yearly to a certain number of the
more important Colleges and Schools in Great -Britain, the
United States, and Germany,, some of the Society's completed
publications. To this gift H.R.H. Prince Leopold will add a
copy of Mr Daniel's Parallel-Text edition of Romeo fy Juliet.
Prizes have already been promist to the following schools and
Colleges : —

Annapolis, St John's Coll., Maryland, U.S.A. : Prof* Garnett,
Baltimore City College, U.S.A. : Prof. Shepherd.

j § 6. Shakspere-Class Prizes. 9

Bedford, Grammar School : Eev. G. W. Phillpotts, Head-Master.

Belfast, Queen's College : Prof. Yonge.

Berlin : Prof. Herrig's Academy.

Bonn : Prof. Delius's Classes.

California University, U.S.A. : Prof. Edw. E. Sill.

Cork, Queen's College : Prof. Armstrong.

Dublin, Trinity College : Prof. Dowden.

Galway, Queen's College : Prof. Moffatt.

Iowa University, U.S.A. : Prof. Barnes.

Ithaca, Cornell University, U.S.A. : Prof. H. Corson.

London, City of London School : Eev. Dr Abbott.

„ Cowper-St. Middle-Class School : H. C. Bowen, Esq., English
Master.

,, King's College Evening Classes.

„ King's College School : J. W. Hales, Esq., English Lecturer.

„ University College : Prof. Hy. Morley.

„ „ „ School : E. E. Horton, Esq., Vice-Master.

Manchester, Grammar School : Eev. F. Walker, Head-Master.
„ Owen's College : Prof. Ward.

„ „ Evening Classes : Dr Ernest Adams.

Mill Hill School : Dr E. E. Weymouth.

Mississippi, University of, U.S.A. : Prof. J. Lipscomb Johnson.
Norwich School : Eev. Dr Jessopp.
Philadelphia, Lafayette College, U.S.A. : Prof. March.
St Andrew's University, Fife : Prof. Baynes.
Strassburg : Prof. B. Ten-Brink's Classes.

and the Committee are willing to receive applications from
more bodies of the kind.

Early English Text Society (Subscription, one Guinea a year for the Original

Series, and one Guinea for the Extra Series); Chaucer Society (two

Guineas a year); Ballad Society (one Guinea a year) : Hon. Sec., Arthur

G. Snelgrove, Esq., London Hospital, E.
English Dialect Society (10*. 6d. a year) : Director and Hon. Sec., the Eev.

W. W. Skeat, 1, Cintra Terrace, Cambridge.
Philological Society (one Guinea a year, and one Guinea entrance): Hou.

Sec., E. J. Purnivall, Esq., 3, St George's Square, Primrose Hill, N.W.
Paleographical Society for facsimiles of Manuscripts (one Guinea a year) :

Hon. Sec., E. Maunde Thompson, Esq., British Museum, London, W.C.
Spenser Society for Elizabethan Eeprmts (two Guineas a year) : Agents,

Messrs Simms, Printers, Manchester.
Hunterian Club for Elizabethan and Scotch Eeprints (two Guineas a year) :

Hon. Sec., Alexander Smith, Esq., Laurelbank Place, Shawlands, Glasgow.
Arber's Elizabethan and other English Eeprints: Mr E. Arber, Bowes,

Southgate, London, N.
Edward III. (much of which Mr Tennyson and others attribute to Shakspere)

can be had in the Tauchnitz 5 Doubtful Plays of &halcs$eret at 1*. 6c?., paper

covers, or 2s. 6d, cloth, gilt edges.

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COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT:
DIRECTOR: FREDERICK J. FURN1VALL, ESQ.

TREASURER : HENRY B. WHEATLEY, ESQ.

HON. SEC. : ARTHUR G. SNELGROVE, ESQ., LONDON HOSPITAL,

LONDON, E.

J. MEADOWS COWPER, ESQ.
ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, ESQ.
DANBY P. FRY, ESQ.
HENRY HUCKS GIBBS, ESQ.
REV. BARTON LODGE.
REV. J. RAWSON LUMBY.

REV. DR. RICHARD MORRIS.
J. A. H. MURRAY, ESQ.
EDWARD B. PEACOCK, ESQ.
REV. WALTER W. SKEAT.
HENRY SWEET, ESQ.
W. ALDIS WRIGHT, ESQ.

( With power to add Workers to their number.)

BANKERS:
THE HEAD OFFICE OF" THE UNION BANK OF LONDON,

PRINCES STREET, E.C.
PUBLISHERS : TRUBNER & CO., 57 & 59, LUDGATE HILL, E.C.

THE Early English Text Society was started in 1864? for the purpose of
bringing within the reach of the many the hitherto inaccessible treasures of
Old English literature, and of clearing England from the reproach under
which she has so long rested of caring little for the monuments of her early
language and life. During the ten years of its existence the Society has
been successful in issuing to its subscribers a large number of Texts illus
trating the language, the history, the belief, and the habits of our ancestors.
The publications of the Society appeal to those interested in the history of
their native language and land ; to men who can trace in these records
the intimate connection which exists between the present and the past, and
who can see in such records the dead past become a living reality.

The publications of The Early English Text Society are divided into Four
Classes. I. Arthur and other Romances. II. Works illustrating our Dialects
and the History of our Language, including a Series of re-editions of our
early Dictionaries. III. Biblical Translations and Religious Treatises.
IV. Miscellaneous. (The Extra Series, which commenced in 1867, is in
tended for re-editions.)

The Publications for 1866 are out of print, but a separate subscription
has been opened for their immediate reprint. The Texts for 1864, and all
but three for 1865, have been reprinted. Subscribers who desire the Texts
of all or any of these years should send their names at once to the Hon.
Secretary, as many additional names are required before the Texts for 1866
can be sent to press.

The Subscription is £1 1*. a year [and £1 1*. (Large Paper, £2 12rf. 6J.)
additional for the EXTRA SERIES], due in advance on the 1st of JANUARY,
and should be paid either to the Society's Account at the Head Office of the
"Union Bank, Princes Street, London, E.G., or by Money Order (made pay
able at the Chief Office, London, and crosst * Union Bank ') to the Hon.
Secretary, ARTHUR G. SNELGROVE, Esq., London Hospital, London, E.
(United-States Subscribers, who wish their Texts posted to them, must pay
for postage 5*. a year extra for the Original Series, and 3,?. a year for the
Extra Series.) The Society's Texts are also sold separately at the prices put
after them in the Lists.

THE

NEW SHAKSPERE SOCIETY.

"Societie (saith the text) is the happinesse of life."— Loucs Labour's lost, iv. 2.

Meeting at University College, Gower St, London, W.C., on the 2nd Friday of every
month (except at Easter and during July, August, and September), at 8 p.m. Sub
scription, One Guinea a year, due on 1st January, and payable to the Hon. Sec., A. G.
Snelgrove, Esq., London Hospital, London, E.

PRESIDENT :

[It is Jtoped that one of our chief living Poets will take the post.]

VICE-PRESIDENTS :

The Eev. EDWIN A. ABBOTT, D.D.

C. E. APPLETON, Esq., D.C.L.

THE LORD BISHOP OF BATH AND WELLS.

Professor T. SPENCER BAYNES, LL.D., St An
drew's.

WILLIAM BLACK, Esq.

H. I. H. PRINCE Louis-LtrciEN BONAPARTE.

Professor F. J. CHILD, Ph.D., Harvard Coll.,
U.S.A.

Prof. HIRAM CORSON, Cornell Univ., Ithaca,
U.S.A.

THE RIGHT HON. WM. F. COWPER-TEMPLE,
M.P.

THE HON. MRS WM. F. COWPER-TEMPLE.

SIR JOHN F. DAVIS, Bart.

LORD DELAMERE.

Professor N. DELIUS, Ph.D., Bonn.

THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DERBY.

THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE, K.G.

Prof essorDowDEN, LL.D., Triii.Coll., Dublin.

THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.

THE COUNTESS OF DUCIE.

THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DUFFERIN
AND CLANDEBOYE, Governor-General of
Canada.

THE EARL OF ELLESMERE.

ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, Esq., F.R.S.

Professor KARL ELZE, Ph.D., Dessau. '

HORACE HOWARD FURNESS, Esq., Philadel
phia, U.S.A.

MRS HORACE HOWARD FURNESS.

MADAME GERVINUS, Heidelberg.

HENRY HUCKS GIBBS, Esq., M.A.

THE EARL OF GOSFORD.

Professor G. GUIZOT, College de France,
Paris.

N. E. S. A: HAMILTON, Esq.

SIR T. DUFFUS HARDY.

Bev. H. N. HUDSON, Cambridge, U.S.A.

Professor T. H. HUXLEY, F.R.S.

R. C. JEBB, Esq., M.A., Public Orator, Cam
bridge.

LORD LECONFIELD.

F. LEIGHTON, Esq., R.A.

Professor LEO, Ph.D., Berlin.

H. R. H. PRINCE LEOPOLD.

THE MARQUIS OF LOTHIAN.

J. RUSSELL LOWELL, Esq., D.C.L., Cambridge,
U.S.A.

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart., M.P., FJl.S.

THE RIGHT HON. LORD LYTTELTON.

GEORGE MACDONALD, Esq., LL.D.

THE DUKE OF MANCHESTER.

H. MAUDSLEY, Esq., M.D.

Prof. HENRY MORLEY, Univ. Coll., London.

Rev. RICHARD MORRIS, LL.D.

Professor MAX MULLER, Ph.D., Oxford.

Professor C. W. OPZOOMER, Ph.D., Utreuht.

Professor C. H. PEARSON, M.A., Melbourne.

SIR HENRY RAWLINSON.

HENRY REEVE, Esq., D.C.L.

THE RIGHT HON. LORD ROMILLY.

DANTE G. ROSSETTI, Esq.

Professor J. RUSKIN, M.A., Oxford.

THE EX-BISHOP OF ST DAVID'S.

ALEXANDER SCHMIDT, Ph.D., Berlin,

Professor J. R. SEELEY, M.A., Cambridge.

The Rev. W. W. SKEAT, M.A., Cambridge.

WILLIAM SMITH, Esq., D.C.L.

SIR EDWARD STRACHEY, Bart.

TOM TAYLOR, Esq., M.A.

Professor BERN HARD TEN BRINK, Ph.D.
Strassburg.

THE RIGHT REV. BISHOP THIRLWALL.

THE REV. W. H. THOMPSON, D.D., MASTER OF
TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

Professor ULRICI, Ph.D., Halle.

R. GRANT WHITE, Esq., New York, U.S.A.

COMMITTEE :

F. J. Fi RNIVALL, Esq. (M.A.), Director, 3, St George's Square, Primrose Hill, London, N.W.

J. W. HALES, Esq., M.A.

C. MANSFIELD INGLEBY, Esq., LL.D.

GEORGE H. KJNGSLEY, Esq., M.D.

FRED. D. MATTHEW, Esq.
BRINSLEY NICHOLSON, ESQ., M.D.
RICHARD SIMPSON, Esq., B.A.

Treasurer: WILLIAM PAYNE, Esq., The Keep, Forest Hill, London, S.E.
Hon. Sec. : ARTHUR G. SNELGROVE, Esq., London Hospital, London, E.

Bankers: THE ALLIANCE BANK, Bartholomew Lane, London, E.G.

Publishers: N. TRUBNER & Co., 57 and 59, Ludgate Hill, London, E.G.

Agents for North Germany: ASHER & Co., 53, Mohren-Strasse, Berlin,

Agent for South Germany, cfrc;.- KARL J. TRUBNER, 9, Munster Platz, Strassburg.

. *

1943

New Sh&kspere Society,
London

c Publications^

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY